


ODDFELLOWS

by DrTanner



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 12:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 140,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9658397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrTanner/pseuds/DrTanner
Summary: The Nightmare is a flawed, imprecise place. Sometimes, mistakes are made.Sometimes, if one wanders far enough and makes just the right - or rather, wrong - missteps, he might just see some things that he was never meant to see.NB: I started writing this self-indulgent nonsense at about 2am on a Saturday morning. Expect chapters to be fairly brief and poorly-edited. I'll update when I can! ( b ._.)bEDIT: I lied. The chapters just keep getting longer and longer and I've never edited anything harder in my fucking life. I have wholly lost control of this fic and I have no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing anymore. Enjoy the delicious taste of my 4am suffering.





	1. Chapter 1

We know that the Entity isn’t infallible. It frequently has to make shit up to fill the gaps in its knowledge of the waking world, and it seems to have a really poor grasp of physical space. Outside of the handful of specific locations the Entity has recreated, the Nightmare woods just seem to go on forever, and it seems likely to me that if one walks in a straight line for long enough, they’ll just end up back where they started because _that’s just how it works_. You’re not supposed to be able to escape from it. You’re not supposed to be able to _leave_. The Entity wants you to stay in your shitty little Nightmare Terrarium and by golly, _you are going to stay there_.

Except, the Entity isn’t infallible. The Entity’s creations are imperfect. The Entity makes mistakes.

Whilst it’s true that, for the majority of the time, if you walk in a straight line for long enough, you’ll end up back where you started, sometimes, ever so occasionally, you’ll end up _somewhere else_.

Suppose, if you will, that Jake decides he needs to get some breathing space for a while, away from his fellow Survivors. Maybe an argument has broken out over something stupid and people are yelling at each other, something like that, and Jake, having been accustomed to living very much alone for quite some time before falling into the Entity’s shitty nonsense, does not have the patience for it. He announces loudly that he is going for a walk, and doesn’t care if anybody hears him before he marches himself into the woods, knowing that he only has to keep walking for long enough to wind up back at the campfire with his companions. With a bit of luck, they won’t be quite so full of piss and vinegar anymore by the time he returns.

There are two cigarettes in his jacket pocket. He had them when he got here, and every time he’s killed in a trial, they regenerate along with the rest of him when the Entity spits him back out into the Nightmare. It’s far from worth dying for, but Jake will take what he can get, and he lights one of them once he’s far enough into the woods that he can be confident that he’s out of eyeshot. It feels selfish to be so secretive about it, but Jake knows that he has to think of himself at least once in a while.

The quiet is a welcome relief, but, after a while, he becomes increasingly aware that he’s been walking for an awfully long time - his cigarette burned out a good while ago, and although time isn’t an exact thing in the Nightmare, he really does feel as though he ought to be able to at least _see_ the light of the campfire by now, and there’s no sign of it. He’s aware, vaguely, that sometimes things go awry with these woods, because the Entity isn’t infallible, but he chases the anxiety from his mind. There’s no way that the Entity, however ignorant and inept it may be, would ever simply let him escape. If he just keeps walking for long enough, he’s sure to wind up _somewhere_.

Imagine Jake’s horror, then, when he catches sight of a distinct silhouette between the trees some distance ahead of him, far too tall and broad to belong to any of his friends, with gangly limbs and an awkward, uneven gait that he’d recognise in a heartbeat anywhere.

To say that he’s wandered into the wrong neck of the woods suddenly seems like the most gross understatement.

Jake immediately freezes, like a deer in headlights, mind racing. He’d always assumed that the Killers must have their own little corner of the Nightmare, just as he and his friends do, but the Entity, until now, has always been very particular about keeping them separate from each other, for obvious reasons. This must be a mistake. It has to be. It could only be a mistake.

The Hillbilly, too, has stopped dead in his tracks, and though Jake can’t see him clearly in the darkness, he knows he must be looking at him. He’s just as surprised to see Jake, it would appear, and a tense standoff ensues as Jake tries to decide whether he should try to run, or if that might incite the Hillbilly to chase him. It might be better to try to move more slowly, maybe break his line of sight with him, and then make a proper run for it after that.

Before Jake can come to a clear decision, however, the Hillbilly’s long shadow is joined by another, someone a little taller than he is - the wide shoulders and skinny waist give the Wraith away immediately, and any strategy that Jake has formulated in the last few moments is instantly dashed as the Hillbilly urgently points him out to his “friend”. The Wraith’s eyes are a pair of unnaturally bright white points in the darkness of the woods, and Jake is left in no doubt at all that the monster sees him, has him pegged.

Just one of the bastards was bad enough; what the fuck is he supposed to do about two of them? Jake finds himself, in that moment, keenly appreciative for the structured rules of the Entity’s trials. This would never happen in a fucking trial. This is _bullshit_.

But then he looks at the two Killers, actually _watches_ them, and realises that they don’t seem overly keen to attack him. Their body language is not hugely different from his own, cautious and reluctant to make any sudden moves, and he’s sure that he can see them - but not quite hear them - conferring with each other. They don’t know what to do, do they, being just as aware as Jake is that this is highly abnormal and not the correct order of things. Jake shouldn’t be here, and they know it. Something is _wrong_ if Jake is here.

The Wraith hasn’t looked away for a moment for the entire time he’s been here. Every now and then he’ll move or bob his head, not unlike a cat, but his piercing eyes remain unwaveringly and unblinkingly locked with Jake’s, and Jake daren’t look away. Somehow this is worse than having the fuckers explicitly out to murder him; at least he knows where he stands with them when they’re trying to bludgeon him half to death and hang him on a rusty meathook, but like this, he’s got no way of telling what they’re going to do, or when they’re going to do it.

Furthermore, coming to that, what _would_ happen if they managed to kill him outside of a trial, without the Entity’s knowledge or permission? Would he come back, still? Would he turn up back at the campfire, amongst his friends? He’s a little tempted to find out. Then again, there’s also a decent chance that the Entity might be understandably upset at him for having given it the slip, and Jake isn’t sure that he wants to risk offering himself up for punishment like that. He stays put.

A heartbeat later, though, the Hillbilly is turning and sprinting away in the direction that the Wraith came to him from, and the sudden movement is enough to make Jake flinch. Apparently some plan of action has been agreed, and now Jake is left, still, with the Wraith. He’s still pointedly refusing to look away, even for a second, and Jake realises that he’s doing it to discourage him from fleeing. Indeed, the moment Jake tries to take a step away from him, towards the nearest tree for cover, very slowly and very gingerly, the Wraith mock-lunges for him, warning him that he will most certainly give chase should Jake try to run or otherwise excuse himself.

He’s _definitely_ to stay put, then. Jake swallows, his mouth dry, and does as he’s told.

It feels like a long time until the Hillbilly returns, but when he does, it’s with bad news. Or, rather, bad news for Jake, in the form of the Trapper, whose counsel he appears to be seeking as he once again points Jake out, nervously fidgeting with the tattered edge of his vest as he does so.

Mercifully, the Trapper knows what to do, or at least, he seems to. He takes a few moments to look at Jake, then rests his fists on his hips and tilts his head to one side to look at him for a few moments more before shortly giving his well-apprised verdict.

In that instant, Jake is certain that he’s going to find out what it’s like to die outside of a trial - he knows the Trapper to be ruthlessly and brutishly aggressive. There’s no way that this could possibly end well.

To Jake’s surprise, however, rather than starting after him, the Trapper instead grabs the Hillbilly by the arm, and roughly shoves him in the other direction, quelling his companion’s protests by bodily shoving him again, harder, every time he tries to stop or turn around. The Wraith, whom he seems to expect to know well enough not to have to be told, is left standing there by himself, and his gaze is finally broken as he glances anxiously a few times between Jake and the departing Trapper, eventually casting one last look at their peculiar visitor and hesitantly following his fellows.  

And then, that’s it. They’re gone. The Trapper’s word is law around here, it would appear.

Maybe, Jake reflects, it’s because they’re outside of a trial. Maybe the Killers have similar concerns to his own about doing things without the Entity’s permission, or maybe they know that they won’t be rewarded for killing him like this and can’t be bothered to expend the energy it would take to chase him down and catch him. Whatever the case, Jake has been left to his own devices once more, and within a few short minutes, the woods are eerily silent again, with no sign at all of the odd neighbours he’s stumbled upon.

He wastes no time in turning and fleeing in a full sprint, back the way he came, desperate to find his way back to his own neighborhood, to the safety of the campfire and his friends.

Before he’s even out of breath, though, Jake finds himself coming up upon a clearing amongst the trees. It’s an unfamiliar place, conspicuously bereft of a campfire’s flickering light, and he’s wise enough to stop short of leaving the treeline. Once he’s near enough to see between the remaining trees between the clearing and himself, however, Jake spies something that he most definitely _does_ recognise: the decrepit shack that seems to be a permanent feature of every shitty little pocket world that the Entity creates to host its trials.

The sight of it fills Jake with dread. This is no trial. This shack, then, must be the original, the one that the Entity has copied and reproduced in all of those pockets, and if that’s the case, there’s only one place that this could possibly be.

Sure enough, to Jake’s great horror, the Trapper is there, walking by on the other side of the clearing, the Hillbilly following just behind him. They’re talking, but Jake is too far away to make out what they’re actually saying. It’s probably for the best, he reflects.

There’s no time to think about that, though. While it’s true that the Killers were disinterested in him earlier, this is _their_ turf, and Jake knows he’s got no business being there. Things may very well be different if they see him here. Once again, Jake turns and runs, back the way he came, trying to put as much distance between himself and that accursed shack as he can in as short a time as he can manage.

Everything looks the same in the Entity’s woods. It’s hard to tell which way you’re running, where you’ve already been or where you might be going. The trees and the lay of the land have a tendency to shift and change around you in those brief moments when you aren’t looking. Even so, though, Jake is sure, _so sure,_ that he didn’t change direction or get turned around, which makes it all the more sickening to arrive at the edge of that fucking clearing a second time.

Jake’s blood runs cold as realisation begins to dawn, but he’s not willing to give up yet, and for the third time, he dashes into the woods as fast as his rapidly wearying legs will carry him.

And, for the third time, the trees eventually part before him, revealing the shack.

Still, he is nothing if not doggedly determined. No fewer than another six times does Jake turn around and hurl himself headlong back into the woods, and every time, after some little varying while, he’ll come upon a gap in the trees, and, after that, the shack. Eventually, exhausted and gasping for breath, thighs burning underneath him, Jake can run no more, and, leaning against a tree, he inwardly curses as he finally understands, for sure, that he’s somehow wangled his way into the wrong “bubble”.

Fucking typical that the Entity’s bullshit should start working properly now that he’s actually _trying_ to leave. Fucking. What absolute horseshit. Fucking horseshit, unbelievable. _Horseshit_.

What’s he supposed to do, then? Does he live here, now? Somehow, Jake doubts that the Trapper and his “colleagues” are going to be terribly understanding of his situation. It’d be best to just stay well out of their way, Jake reasons. If he’s quiet enough and doesn’t actually venture into the clearing, they might not even know that he’s there at all, and in the meantime, he can keep trying to _get out_.

That’s it, then. That’s the plan. Be quick, be quiet, keep trying to get out. Jake’s pounding heart finally begins to slow, his blood ceases to roar quite so loudly in his ears, and his head begins to clear. It’ll be alright. He can do this, he can fix it.

It’ll be fine.

**TO BE CONTINUED.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know, you'd think that it'd be the constant threat of torture and the repetitive, excruciating deaths that make the Nightmare a terrible place.
> 
> Well, you'd be wrong.

Time is an odd thing in the Nightmare. Jake has a hunch that there _is_ no such thing as time in the Nightmare, in fact, because nothing ever changes here. Despite the horror of the Nightmare’s functional purpose, it’s actually a horrendously boring place, absolutely fucking mind-numbing in those sometimes lengthy gaps between trials, and that’s the worst thing about it. In the Nightmare, you’re switching between brain-melting boredom for having absolutely nothing to do, and then suddenly having _far too much_ to do when you find yourself being shunted into a trial, with absolutely no intermediate stage in between.

Sometimes, the Entity lets Jake and his friends out of the little place that it keeps them in, and gives them the run of the freakish imitations of waking world places that it’s made. They’ll just look up sometimes, and the trees will have parted for them. The intention, Jake has always assumed, is that the change of scenery will give him and his fellow Survivors something to occupy themselves with, a little enrichment, but these weird pocket dimensions are such empty, shallow mockeries of the places they mean to replicate that it’s beyond pointless; there’s still nothing to do but wander around and bicker with each other, whether you’re doing it around the campfire or in the middle of a cornfield. The Entity doesn’t understand, it seems, how to take proper care of its pets.

If it could just make a tiny bit more effort, it would make such a difference, it really would. Some kind of day/night cycle would work wonders, Jake thinks. If the moon ever moved from its single, fixed point in the sky, for example, he might have some idea of how long he’s been sitting there, between the thick roots of the tree he ducked behind a while ago to rest and catch his breath. It feels like it’s been a long time - his legs don’t feel quite so much like jelly anymore, at least - but there’s no way of telling, really, and Jake doesn’t suppose it matters.

What matters is figuring out what to do next.

Not for the first or last time, Jake leans back against the tree, draws in a long, slow, deep breath, and gives an equally long, slow, deep sigh, once again taking stock of the situation he’s fallen into, seeing what he has to work with. It’s not a lot, on reflection. He can’t leave. That’s the first big problem. The second problem is that, for the entirety of the however-long he’s been sat there, Jake’s been able to hear the Killers moving around and going about their business nearby, and they’re a constant source of anxiety. Still, they aren’t actively looking for him, which makes a big difference. He’s been sitting around on their proverbial doorstep for what he’s sure must be a good, long while, but, given that he’s being quiet and still, they haven’t noticed him.

He’ll take what he can get.

He keeps hearing them _talking,_  which is a bit strange, to say the least. Again, he’s too far away to hear what they’re actually talking _about,_  but that’s not the strange thing about it. That they talk at all has come as quite a shock. Then again, thinking about it, Jake supposes that there’s no reason why they wouldn’t. They’re intelligent enough. They regularly outwit their quarries during trials, and they understand such uniquely human concepts as chainsaws and beartraps. They’re not animals.

The longer Jake sits there, though, the more overwhelming and intrusive the temptation to try to get close enough to hear what they’re saying becomes.

 _God, no,_ he thinks. _Have some fucking sense._

…

_… But then again._

But then again. This is the first genuinely interesting thing that’s happened since Jake got here, and he can’t even begin to imagine how long it’s been since then. Even without being able to hear what’s actually being said, for example, he can hear that the Killers are being _actually quite civil_ with each other, certainly more than he would have expected them to be. They’re not having the kind of bitter arguments or verbal sparring matches that happen “back home” at the campfire, and that alone is enough to pique Jake’s curiosity enormously. They’re literally just talking, that’s all. No raised voices, no yelling over each other, nothing. They’re just talking.

What would they even have to talk about?

Jake chews feverishly on his bottom lip, fighting the growing urge to peer around the tree and take another look at the suddenly fascinating monsters in the clearing beyond.

No. No, he’s smarter than that. Smarter, and stronger. He’s _better_ than that.

Jake gets to his feet, straightens his back and squares his shoulders, and walks pointedly away from the clearing. Maybe he’ll be lucky enough to find his way home this time, and he won’t have to worry about this at all anymore. He’ll get back to the campfire, back to his friends, his good, human friends, who only ever manage to speak to each other civilly or hold decent conversations occasionally, and he’ll never have to grapple with his pesky desire for knowledge or understanding ever again.

Everything will go back to the way it was, and it will stay that way forever.

Another heartbeat later and Jake is back behind the tree at the edge of the clearing.

_What the fuck are they talking about?_

However, even as emboldened as Jake is by the utterly all-consuming thirst to _just know_ \- because he just wants to _know,_ that’s all he wants, in the whole world, this or any other, he just wants to _know_ \- he does, at least, manage to remember whose yard he’s in, and he remains mindful to be cautious, to be quiet. There’s no cover in the clearing, unless one considers the shack to be cover, and there’s no way in hell that he’s going to attempt to scoot himself all the way over there, especially considering that there might be someone in it when he gets there.

No, he’s going to have to stick to the treeline, see how close he can get from there.

Turning his back on the clearing and walking away from it, however briefly, turns out not to have been the best idea. In doing that, Jake lost sight of the Trapper and the Hillbilly, and he’s not sure where they’ve gone. It’s best not to lose sight of a Killer in any case, for a handful of very pertinent reasons, notable amongst which being that Jake would prefer to know about it if any of them manage to see _him,_  but now it’s frustrating to boot: the conversation that was going on just a short while ago has stopped, and Jake can’t help but feel somewhat cheated.

The only thing for it is to move around the edge of the clearing, to see if he can find them again. There are ways of finding Killers during trials, of course, because the Entity grants abilities and talents during trials, but Jake has no such luxuries to rely upon now. Now, all he has are his eyes, his ears and everything he learned from living in the woods, the _real_ woods, way, way back before all of this terrible nonsense began.

It feels like such a long time ago.

The Trapper, at least, proves blessedly easy to find. His footsteps are heavy and solid, and although it’s not quite the hyper-aggressive powerwalk that Jake is used to seeing from him, he’s definitely on the move, looking around - he doesn’t know, does he? Jake is so sure that he’s been stealthy, he can’t possibly have seen or heard him, he can’t have done, surely. Oh god, please, no.

Jake hastily ducks back behind the nearest tree, hoping that it isn’t too late to hide, pressing his shoulders against the trunk. But then he hears the Trapper’s voice.

“Max!”

It’s precisely the kind of voice that Jake always imagined that the Trapper would speak with, big and deep and harsh, like a bull’s bellow. But if he’s not looking for Jake, who _is_ he looking for? Who the hell is ‘Max’?

_“Max!”_

They’re in trouble, whoever they are. The Trapper is quickly growing impatient.

“Max, where the fuck have you gone!?”

Good christ, Jake can feel his footsteps through the ground underneath his own feet. He must only be on the other side of the tree, and Jake, crouching down as silently as he can, holding his breath for fear of being heard, tries to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible.

_“MAX!”_

He is, he’s _right there._  Jake can hear him breathing, hears the loud, frustrated huff that comes out of him when ‘Max’ fails to appear, and all he can do, then, is huddle at the base of the tree, and close his eyes, cringing. This was a terrible idea. Fucking stupid. He should’ve just fucking walked. The bastard must be nearly on top of him, and Jake feels, in that instant, that he deserves everything that he’s about to get. He should’ve just walked. For fucks sake.

Just as he’s beginning to feel the lack of air dragging at the inside of his chest, though, Jake hears those big, heavy footsteps move away from him, and he finally dares to draw the softest, most silent breath he can muster, the adrenaline still raw and burning in his veins. It’s a few moments before he even notices that he can, in fact, now hear what the Trapper is saying.

“Philip, where’s Max?”

… Who the fuck is ‘Philip’? Gathering himself up as best he can, Jake quickly builds up the courage to lean around the tree trunk and see who the Trapper is speaking to.

It’s the Wraith. He’s shrugging. Apparently, he doesn’t know where Max is, either.

The Trapper grumbles.

“Bloody hell. Come on, then,” he tells the Wraith, irritably, already walking away. “We’d better find him before he gets himself lost.”

And then they’re gone again, and Jake is left to process everything he’s just witnessed.

 _Philip._  The Wraith’s name is _Philip._  

Jake’s immediate reaction to this revelation is to reflect that it’s the most stupid thing he’s ever heard. Philip? _Really?_ It’s just about the most harmless name he can think of. And if the Wraith is ‘Philip’, then that only leaves the Hillbilly, doesn’t it? He was around a little while ago, but it seems like he’s wandered off somewhere. He must be ‘Max’.

They have _names._  They have names, and they talk to each other. That’s insane.

But is it, though? Jake supposes it isn’t, when he thinks about it. In fact, he already knows that one of the Killers has a proper name besides the nickname given to him by the Survivors - there’s that Myers guy, isn’t there? Michael, or something, and not only does he have a name, but he has a _sister._  Jake has met her. She talked all about him. He was a person, once.

So, does that mean that they were _all_ people? That’s a weird thought. Jake, suddenly finding himself with quite a lot to mull over, once more sits himself down between the roots of a tree, leans back against the trunk, and tries to make sense of it.

_Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser._

It won’t do to go humanising them, though, will it. Regardless of what - or who - the Killers might have been in the past, there’s no getting around what they are now, is there. It wouldn’t be wise to start feeling too sympathetic towards them, and, really, all Jake has to do is remember any one of the numerous occasions upon which one of those bastards has grabbed him or struck him or spilled his blood or half-crippled him or thrown him up on one of those god-awful hooks, or done the same to his friends, for that matter, and any consideration for ‘Philip’ or ‘Max’ or any of their buddies goes flying freely out of the window.

Fuck the Killers, whoever they are.

And, as that thought is crossing Jake’s mind, he realises that he can hear someone breathing, right next to him.

He swallows, as quietly as he can, and very nervously forces himself to turn his head and look.

Sure enough, there’s Philip - that is, the Wraith - bending down, and peering around the tree at him with that same chilling, piercing gaze. Jake all but leaps out of his skin, his kneejerk attempt to scramble to his feet sending him toppling backwards as his heel catches on a wayward root. He lands heavily on his backside and tries to scoot backwards and away, panicking, but the Wraith just stands there and watches him do it, only moving after him when he shuffles around enough to put the tree between the two of them, and even then, it’s only to look around from the other side of the trunk, to keep watching him.

The Wraith’s expression is difficult to read, to say the least, but Jake would have expected him to have _done something_ by now. Instead, though, all he seems interested in doing is looking, _playing,_  almost, following Jake around to the other side of the tree trunk each time he tries to hide behind it and cocking his head at him.

_“Philip!”_

The sound of his name being barked at him from some way across the clearing catches the Wraith’s attention immediately, however, interrupting the ‘game’, and he quickly straightens up to turn and look at the Trapper, leaving Jake to stare at both of them from where he’s still on the ground.

“Leave him be, for fucks sake!”

It’s not what Jake expected to hear the Trapper say, and he sounds mildly vexed more than anything else. And, sure enough, there’s the Hillbilly, ‘Max’, following just behind him, watching owlishly from around the Trapper’s great, broad shoulder.

‘Philip’ doesn’t need to be told twice, and once again gives Jake one more brief, parting glance before leaving him to rejoin his fellow Killers. The Hillbilly needs a little more convincing to overcome his curiosity, however, and for the second time has to be bodily grabbed and turned in the other direction by the Trapper before he’ll voluntarily walk away with him and the Wraith. They’ve got better things to do than fool around with a lost kid, it would appear, and Jake is nothing if not intensely relieved.

But… did they already know that he was there? The Trapper didn’t seem at all surprised to see him, just a bit annoyed that Philip - that is, the Wraith - was fooling around with him, or whatever it was that he was trying to do. Have they known that he’s been here the entire time?

Moreover, it occurs to Jake that they weren’t even a little bit interested in chasing him or catching him or hurting him, or anything, in fact, and indeed, the Trapper seemed very much of the opinion that they shouldn’t be doing anything with him _at all._  Then, could it be that he’d seen Jake when he was looking for the Hillbilly earlier, too, and simply ignored him altogether? He’d come awfully, awfully close, and Jake’s never managed to get away with a stunt like that in a trial.

The dropping of the proverbial penny is quite a bit slower than it might have been if Jake didn’t have piles and piles of negative reinforcement and fear to work through first, but after some minutes, something rather important occurs to him:

_He doesn’t have to be afraid of the Killers._

He doesn’t. They’ve had every opportunity to do him harm and they’ve actively decided against it every time. Not that he’s going to march out there and make a nuisance of himself, of course, because he suspects that they might take some umbrage with that, but he can, at the very least, afford to get close enough to hear what they talk about, see what they do.

To learn their names.

Holy shit. There’s something to do in the Nightmare. There’s something novel and interesting for Jake to learn about, something to chase away the crushing, ever-present boredom, _finally._ That’s amazing! That’s all he’s ever wanted! More, in fact! Better! There’s something to do, and _by god,_  Jake is going to make the most of it if it kills him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the woods...

Jake is sure that he must be losing his fucking mind. It’s the boredom that’s done it; the pain and death and suffering too, of course, but mostly the boredom. He’s not sure, exactly, how long he’s been following these murderous freaks around on their home turf, but it’s been a good, long while by now, he’s fairly certain, because during that time, his internal dialogue has become increasingly similar to the narration of a nature documentary.

_… and in this unforgiving landscape, one finds the Greater White-Faced Trapper, known colloquially as “Evan” by the people of its native habitat…_

He’s having _fun._  It’s _fun_ playing at studying the Killers, now that he knows that they aren’t bothered by his being there, and without the constant fear of an impending trial hanging over his head, the Nightmare has lost much of its inherent horror. In fact, without the trials or the threat of injury or death, the Entity’s woods aren’t too much unlike the woods that Jake used to live in, albeit conspicuously bereft of anything other than the Killers, a few crows, and now Jake himself. He can do whatever he wants, more or less, make up his own games to amuse himself with. All in all, it’s not too bad.

Although, it does feel wrong, somehow, to be having fun here. It’s not something that’s supposed to happen. Is this what “survivor’s guilt” feels like?

The mistake by which Jake has ended up here wasn’t his own doing, and he wouldn’t have chosen it for himself if he’d had any say in the matter, but he knows he’s cheating the system. Whatever might be happening to his friends back at the campfire, it isn’t fun, and he’s supposed to be stuck there suffering along with them. It’s a thought that leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and an unpleasant weight in the pit of his stomach.

It’s not fair. This isn’t fair.

But then again, there’s nothing to be done about it, is there? Every now and then, Jake makes a point of going for a walk, of trying to find his way home, but he hasn’t managed it yet, and it’s hardly as if he can rescue his friends and share his safety and relative comfort with them. Feeling guilty about it isn’t going to achieve very much. It’s pointless, in fact, and Jake supposes that he may as well do his best not to squander his own good fortune for the sake of lingering on his guilt suitably enough that he can feel virtuous.

Now, then. The golden rule is that, if your behaviour causes the individuals whom you are observing to change _their_ behaviour, you’re too close.

It’s a rule that Jake remembers having heard once, although he can’t recall where. Was it a former friend studying nature photography? Maybe. It’d make sense. He thinks he remembers knowing someone like that, once, in the distant past.

Regardless of where he might have heard it, however, Jake has been forcefully reminded of this rule a handful of times since beginning his own observations of his new neighbours: although it seems to be quite alright if _Philip_ comes over to investigate him, Jake has learned very quickly that he needs to maintain a respectful distance between himself and Max. Not because of anything that Max does, mind you, but because, on those occasions wherein has Jake stayed put and allowed Max to get within maybe ten or twelve feet of him, Evan has shortly turned up at an irate half-jog and chased him off, and then turned around to point Max back in the direction of the shack.

Although Evan did no more than chase - and made no attempt to catch Jake, even, stopping more or less as soon as Jake had hastily put that respectable distance between them and turning back - the message was glaringly unambiguous, and if Evan wants Jake to go away, then Jake can take a hint. He only needed to be told twice, and that’s been more than enough to convince him to get up and move if he sees Max looking his way ever since.

Even if it _is_ thoroughly bizarre to try to imagine what threat, exactly, a little scrap like him could possibly pose to a monster like Max. He’s just curious, that’s all. What the hell is Evan’s problem?

That’s a point, actually. Jake has, increasingly, been finding himself using the Killers’ names, now that he knows them, even though he’s keeping very much to himself. Their names are less of a mouthful than their Survivor-given nicknames, and, after hearing them speak to each other and refer to each other using those names for quite a while, the nicknames have more or less just sort of, well. They’ve fallen out of Jake’s head, really. They’ve dropped out of his mental vocabulary.

While that in and of itself is no bad thing, it feels dangerous to be humanising them like that. The nicknames provided Jake and his friends with a convenient barrier; it’s easier to think of the Trapper as a mindless beast with no personhood and no personality than it is to think the same of “Evan”. “Evan” is a person’s name, and, now that he isn’t having to run from him anymore, Jake worries that he’s growing too comfortable around him and his “friends”, that watching them talk and spend time and play together - they _play!_ It’s madness! - is going to cause him to forget what they are, and what they actually, really do.

Jake worries that he’s going to forgive them.

Even if it’s only the tiniest, most miniscule little shred of forgiveness that he winds up affording them in his heart, it’s still more than they fucking deserve. It’d be betraying his own friends, his good, human friends, if he forgave Evan or any of his buddies, even in the slightest. No. Absolutely not. They’re monsters, and they always will be, no matter what names Jake might be calling them by.

… They do look an awful lot like people sometimes, though.

The fact that Jake has never seen them interact with each other before coming here has probably contributed to the shock of that weird discovery. Prior to this, he’s only ever seen the Killers during trials, where they are mercifully solitary, and don’t talk. That might be a Rule, come to think of it. Maybe they aren’t allowed to talk during trials. The Entity has quite a few weird Rules like that.

But they talk here, and a lot more besides; one of the most fascinating aspects of “studying” them has been observing the kind of relationships they have with each other. Like Max, for example. He’s a fucking case study all by himself. Jesus, somebody could write a fucking book about Max.

From what Jake’s seen, Max spends more or less all of his time following Evan around, asking questions, and trying, very earnestly, to play with him. Unless one or both of them is in a trial, Max will be right there, tagging along after Evan - and to Evan’s credit, he’s usually very tolerant of it. Not always, but usually, and Jake’s even seen him go and look for Max if he’s conspicuously absent, to make sure that he’s safe, just as he was doing that first time Jake heard him speak. There’s definitely something going on between those two, but it’s unclear as to _what,_ exactly.

Even right now, as Jake is watching him, Max seems to be struggling to know what to do with himself in Evan’s absence. Evan went off into the woods quite a while ago, presumably because there was a trial in need of a Killer, and all that Max has done since he left is stand around and wait for him, occasionally rocking on his heels or swinging his arms, or, as he is now, leaning up against the shack and booting the wall from time to time while he looks around in search of some kind of inspiration. Philip comes over to check on him every now and then, but Philip won’t play, you see, so Max is waiting for Evan.

And when Evan _does_ finally come home, oh boy.

The moment Jake catches sight of him, he can see, quite obviously, that wherever Evan has been, and whatever he’s been doing, he hasn’t had a good time of it. Even without being able to see his face, Jake can read him plainly: he’s tense and rigid, from his hunched shoulders and the taut muscle in his arms right down to his hands, balled into fists, and his gait, stiff and cumbersome as it is, is that of someone who is very tired, and would very much rather not be walking at all.

All of this goes completely over Max’s head. Max wants to play. Max has been waiting _all this time_ for Evan to return, and he’s been _so bored,_ and he’s just _so happy_ that Evan’s come home; before Max has even started towards Evan, Jake is already cringing, knowing all too well what’s coming.

_Oh, don’t. Please, don’t. He doesn’t want to play with you. He clearly doesn’t want to play with you. Just say hello gently, for fucks sake, Max. You can do that, just this once, surely. Just this once, Max. Please._

Alas, Jake is no telepath, and once again, he must watch the whole mess play out like some kind of awful, slow motion trainwreck as Max, blissfully and painfully ignorant of the mountain of regrets he’s about to have, gleefully charges at Evan at a full, gangly sprint and promptly hurls himself at him in a clumsy and tragically misguided attempt to initiate horseplay.

It just keeps fucking happening, doesn’t it.

Evan, predictably, reacts poorly to being forcefully tackled the moment he sets foot in the clearing, catching Max’s forearm in one hand and a fistful of his shitty A-shirt in the other and brutally slamming him to the ground, an act punctuated with a by-now familiar roar of _“MAX, FUCK OFF!!”_ that still sends Jake ducking behind the nearest tree, even after hearing it so often.

But before Evan do any more, Philip appears, rushing in to catch Evan’s arm mid-swing, putting a stop to the violence before it can escalate any further.

The first time Jake saw this happen, he was sure, so sure, that Evan was going to turn on Philip and slug him in the face instead. Evan must weigh twice what Philip does. His arm is thicker than one of Philip’s spindly little matchstick legs, for crying out loud. It seemed so obvious that Evan would be made even more furious by the challenge to his dominance and retaliate by venting his anger on Philip.

But he didn’t then, and he doesn’t now.

Philip doesn’t even say anything, because he never does - ever, in fact; Jake has yet to hear him say a word to anyone - but instead stands there, his fingers unable to even fully close around Evan’s massive forearm, and looks him pleadingly in the eye.

And, just the same as always, there’s a few moments’ silence, and then Evan’s great, broad chest slowly rises, then falls again with the heavy, weary sigh that comes out of him before he finally pulls his arm roughly out of Philip’s grasp, and brushes past him to trudge away and get some rest. Nobody says anything. They just watch Evan go, and then there’s nothing left for Philip to do but help Max to his feet and dust him off.

Thankfully, Max is nothing if not incredibly resilient, and even after all of that, he’s no worse for wear but for the stern finger-wagging that he’s getting from Philip. It doesn’t seem like much of a telling off, but it’s enough to make him hang his head. Now that he isn’t completely overwhelmed by his excitement, Max is well able to see his mistake.

It’s just a pity that Philip didn’t manage to catch him before he could jump on Evan this time. Max never seems to fucking learn, no matter how many times this happens, and the longer Jake’s been watching him, the more apparent it’s become that he’s a fair few cards short of a full deck. Evan and Philip must understand it too, because they do seem to spend an awful lot of their time and energy supervising him and making sure that he doesn’t get himself into trouble.

Thank goodness for Philip, though. He’s quiet and somewhat reclusive, but he can always be relied upon to turn up when he’s needed, and he’s blessedly talented at curbing Evan’s notoriously short temper.

This is the most that Jake’s ever seen of Philip, coming to that. Prior to his arriving here, Jake rarely saw Philip during trials, and now, seeing him from the other side of the fence, he does seem to actively avoid participating in them, preferring instead to wait around anxiously for someone else to answer the call when it comes and only heading into the woods after it himself when there really is nobody else around to do it.

Philip is, for that reason, the only one who ever seems pleased, or rather, _relieved,_ to see the Nurse when she decides to blow through the clearing on her way into the woods.

Jake doesn’t know her name yet. He hasn’t heard anyone say it. She doesn’t speak to anyone, or even look at them, if she can help it, and whenever Jake’s seen anyone try to speak to her - well, Max, since Evan doesn’t bother and Philip doesn’t have much to say in general - she’s just gone ahead and ignored them. What Jake does know, though, is that she might give even less of a shit about his being there than any of the others do. She looked straight at him, she saw him, and all she did was pause for a moment, realise what she was looking at (“Ugh.”), and slouch ever so slightly more deeply as she turned and continued on her way.

He could swear that she was shaking her head as she went. She hasn’t troubled herself to look at him again since.

Still, that does leave a couple of other “familiar faces” unaccounted for. When he considers it, though, Jake’s content to stay where he is. He’s not about to go looking for them. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, as they say.

And Evan does eventually resurface after a while, once he’s had some time to put himself back together and he isn’t so tired anymore.

“Come on, then.” He gives Max a hefty shove as he comes within arm’s reach of him. “If you wanna play, we’ll play.”

This would be considerably more endearing if it weren’t for the fact that “playing”, for Evan and Max, almost exclusively means “beating the ever-loving daylights out of each other”. Jake’s never been able to see the appeal in playfighting, and even less so now that it’s these two massive beasts engaging in it.

Apparently this is a good time for them, just fucking wrestling and battering the stuffing out of each other, and even with Max being as tough as he is and Evan mercifully pulling his punches, it’s still pretty difficult to watch sometimes. It looks an awful lot like normal, regular fighting, to Jake’s sheltered, untrained eye; every time one knocks other to the ground or against a tree, which is awfully frequently, it’s with enough force to cause tremors, and Jake has long since learned to get up and move if they’re coming his way. It’s all he can do to keep from flinching. They’re like a couple of bulls in a china shop, and he’d much rather not get in their way.

Speaking of which, as Jake hears another almighty thud and feels the ground shake underneath him, it looks like it’s about time to up and find a new spot again. Neither Evan nor Max notice him as he stands up and quietly slips away, around to the other side of the clearing.

But good god, Max _loves_ it. He’s just grinning the whole time, and he _laughs._ It’s taken Jake a while to figure out that he’s laughing, because Max’s laugh sounds more like some kind of weird hiccup than anything else, but that’s what it is. He’s laughing. He’s having fun, he’s laughing, and he laughs even louder when Evan eggs him on.

“C’mon, hit me, then! What’re you gonna do about it!?”

It’s not something Jake ever expected to see. Nobody could pay him enough to get in the middle of any of it, mind you. He has no doubt at all that either one could break him, even in play; Evan especially could snap his spine in a heartbeat. Nope, no thank you. Don’t want none of that, no sir. Jake likes his face and his spine exactly where they are. Not gonna mess with that, no way.

Perhaps it’s because he’s so engrossed in Max and Evan’s horseplay that Jake doesn’t hear the footsteps in the grass behind him until they’re nearly on top of him.

He turns around, expecting to see Philip, but his heart all but leaps into his throat when he turns around and sees, instead, a distinctly broader figure in a set of blue overalls and an expressionless white mask.

 _Myers._ Jake’s become so used to being safe here that he almost forgot all about him. He’s standing a little less than six feet away, not quite within lunging distance, but he’s looking Jake dead in the eye, and Jake’s gaze is inexorably drawn to the seemingly permanently bloodstained kitchen knife in his hand.

He’s _armed._ None of the bunch in the clearing are _armed._ Even when they’re heading into the woods to answer the call of a trial, Jake’s never seen any of them with a weapon in hand.

Jake swallows, feeling his blood run cold. After all, there never was any guarantee that everyone here would agree to leave him alone, was there?

Ever so slowly, Jake stands up from where he’d been kneeling, trying with all his might not to flinch or make any sudden moves. Myers watches him do it, and for the first time in a long while, Jake feels distinctly as though the eyes of a predator are on him. Every nerve in his body is screaming at him to turn and run, that even letting Myers _look_ at him is dangerous, but this isn’t a trial. This is different. There are no Rules out here - and, more frighteningly, there’s no exit, either.

_Shit. Shit, shit._

Jake’s mind races. With no exit, there’s going to be no escape from this fucker. He could run, but he knows that Myers is faster, and he’ll catch him eventually no matter what. There might not be any hooks or sacrifices to be made in this place, but all of the horror stories about this guy that he’s heard from his sister are suddenly very, very fresh in his mind. Myers isn’t here to do the Entity’s work; he’s here to _do murders,_ regardless of the time, place or means.

_Alright, stay calm. Just… just move away slowly, see if you can put some distance between him and you._

At least if he does that, Jake might be able to last a bit longer when he finally does turn and bolt, and to that end, he carefully inches around the tree he’s been sheltering behind - he’s not about to trip and fall on his ass a second time, not now - and once he’s sure there’s some clear space behind him, he starts backing up. He’s backing up into the clearing, he realises, but Myers - who is still just standing there, staring at him as he goes - is the bigger problem now. Once he’s got a head start on him, Jake figures he can duck back into the woods and lose him there.

Once the gap between the two of them grows too large, however, Myers moves towards him to close it again, and Jake quickly realises that he is not going to get his head start. With Myers now also stepping away from the treeline and into the clearing, that urge to flee is rapidly growing irresistible.

But, in the instant before Jake can act on that urge, someone steps in front of him, someone considerably taller than himself, and in his panicked state, it takes him a few heartbeats to realise that it’s Philip, putting himself between Jake and his would-be attacker.

Now that it’s a fellow Killer standing in his way, Myers is far less eager to press the issue. Still, he’s not about to roll over and give up his quarry for nothing, and he stays right where he is, though his dead-eyed stare is now fixed solidly on Philip instead as he weighs up his options. He must fancy his chances at squaring off against Philip fairly well, because he isn’t budging, and Jake, having taken the opportunity to hide behind Philip by then, once again curses himself for ever having ended up here.

Evidently seeing the need to further drive his point home, Philip flexes his right hand, and in a flurry of glowing embers, his own weapon appears in his palm, solidifying there just in time for Phillip to close his fingers around it. A guttural, inhuman snarl rises out of him as he squares his shoulders, and when Myers still refuses to back down, he makes a mock-lunge towards him in an attempt at intimidation.

None of Philip’s threats faze Myers in the slightest, but if Philip wants to fight, well. Myers’ grip on his knife tightens, his knuckles turning pale.

_“Oi.”_

The loud grunt from behind Philip and himself gives Jake a start, and he turns at it, wide-eyed. Evan, having seen the unfolding commotion, has come to put a stop to it.

Evan is a mountain of a man, massive in every sense of the word, and all he has to do is _stand there_ to be vastly more intimidating than Philip could ever dream of being. As he moves in to back Philip up, it’s the closest Jake has ever been to him without it being some horrible, terrifying mistake, and he's certain that he’s never felt smaller in his life. He shrinks further into Philip’s shadow, wishing sincerely that he could just disappear into it and hide forever.

Evan’s attention, however, is focused entirely on Myers, who is already hastily reconsidering his odds, taking a step or two back towards the treeline as Evan approaches.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Evan growls. “You know me. Piss off back to the campfire where you belong. Go on, off with you.”

Myers, it would appear, has enough sense not to argue with him, and he wastes no time in simply turning around and prowling away, back into the woods and out of sight. Evan and Philip - and now Max, too - watch him leave, and nobody looks away until Myers is long gone.

“Good riddance,” huffs Evan, irritably. He turns to Philip. “You alright?”

Philip nods, and it’s only after that that Evan finally pays any heed to Jake at all, glaring down at him as Philip steps away from him, robbing him of his shelter. Standing there all by himself, surrounded by these monsters, utterly dwarfed by them and knowing that they’d be all too happy to paint the floor with his guts under any other circumstance, Jake can feel the colour draining out of his face.

Evan snorts.

“You’re still here, then.”

It sounds more like a statement of fact than any particular expression of annoyance or displeasure, but still, it resembles one closely enough that Jake struggles to find his voice. Staring up at Evan, he breathlessly opens and closes his mouth a few times before eventually managing to croak a single, tiny word through his suddenly very dry throat.

“... Sorry.”

“Hm.” And that’s it. Evan’s interest in speaking to Jake is spent, and, once more, he turns to Philip. “You’ll be keepin’ him, then, will you?”

Philip nods, and offers Jake what might be a sympathetic look. Jake’s not sure if he should be grateful for it or not.

“Alright. Come on then,” Evan tells Max, giving him a rough nudge towards the shack. “That’s enough. We’ve all got stuff to be gettin’ on with, haven’t we.”

Max does, for a moment, make a very valiant effort to turn around and look over his shoulder, more fascinated than ever by their odd visitor now that Evan’s set a new precedent by speaking to him, but Evan is having none of it, and doesn’t even slow down as he grabs Max by the upper arm and marches him away.

And with that, Jake is left alone with Philip.

It occurs to Jake for a moment that maybe, after all of that, Philip might not be so bad, and he immediately scolds himself for thinking it. But still, with Philip looking down at him, head cocked, he supposes that he owes him _something_ for sticking his neck out for him like that.

That golden rule about getting too close has already gone flying down the toilet, after all.

“... Thanks.”

Philip, as ever, says nothing, but placidly tilts his head the other way. Sticking with him would be the smarter choice, in light of recent events. The woods have turned out not to be the safehaven that Jake had assumed them to be, and he inwardly kicks himself for having grown so comfortable and complacent there. There’s still danger to be found in this wretched place yet, only now, Jake doesn’t have the luxury of a trial’s predictable structure to alert him to it before it finds him and devours him.

The irony is sickening.

“... So.” He glances back up at Philip. “This is where you live, huh?”

Philip nods, and although he starts walking towards the shack, he pauses after just a few steps, looking back at Jake, expecting him to follow.

Well. It’s hardly as if he has a choice, is it. Jake sighs and walks after him, and tries not to flinch at the light touch of Philip’s hand on his back, gently ushering him away from the treeline.

It would appear, then, that Jake’s little game of observing Philip and his friends has come to an abrupt end. He lives here too, now, whether he likes it or not, and he’s going to get a closer look at these weird bastards than he would have ever wanted to ask for.

What a fucking, fucking mess.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, Max's weirdness and odd mannerisms are funny. 
> 
> Usually, though, they're not.
> 
> (I hope you're all sitting comfortably, by the way, because this chapter is almost as long by itself as the previous three combined. Whoops.)

It’s strange. Jake can’t even begin to count the number of times he must have vaulted or thrown himself through the empty window frame that he’s sitting in right now while trying to escape from someone or something, but here he is, sitting in it, quite safe and somewhat contented.

Well, not the exact same one, of course, but rather the copies of it that the Entity has made and shoehorned into all of its little pocket dimensions, the ones in which it holds its trials. Jake’s been hanging around the shack for some time now, and although, on the inside, it’s only slightly less barren than the shacks he’s used to seeing - the Killers have a cobbled-together table in there and some of the junk they’ve collected, and that’s about it - the window frame has turned out to be a very passable place to sit and swing his feet while he watches the other goings-on of the clearing.

He’s still hanging around with Philip, who’s been leaning up against the wall next to him for a while now. He’d be a fool not to stick with Philip, really, considering what’s lurking out in the woods, but he supposes, then again, that Philip isn’t terrible company. Not much of a conversationalist, but a very attentive listener, and he’s always kind enough to point out things that he thinks Jake might be interested in, usually by means of a gentle tug of Jake’s shirt or touch of his arm.

That gentleness seems to be present in nearly everything that Philip does, and it often leads Jake to wonder what he’s doing here. Philip really doesn’t seem to fit in well amongst his fellow Killers, especially not when Evan and Max are beating the shit out of each other for kicks right in front of him.

Although, thankfully, that’s not the case right now. Right now, Max has _questions,_ which means that Evan is going to have to have the answers if he wants to get a minute’s peace at some point in the near future. He’s been surprisingly tolerant so far, given that Max has been following him around and continually probing him for said answers while he tries to get on with other things.

Needless to say, Evan is not getting much done. Jake’s been watching him sit there for quite a while, trying to focus on repairing some of his traps - traps broken, no doubt, by one of Jake’s friends - but his concentration is constantly being interrupted by the sound of his own name being whined in his ear.

_“Evaaaaaaan.”_

“... _What,_ Max?”

“How comes he’s different, though?”

“What?”

“How comes he’s different to the others, Evan?”

“Because he’s older than the rest of them, isn’t he.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means he’s been about longer, doesn’t it. Come on, Max, we’ve talked about this. You remember, don’t you?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah.”

They’re talking about Ace. They don’t know his name, but they’re talking about him, and Max seems to be having some difficulty getting his head around him. True enough, Jake himself hadn’t really realised how _young_ everyone was until Ace had turned up in the Nightmare, an actual, real _adult_ amongst a bunch of not-quite-kids, but Max sounds as if he’s never seen anyone older than a young 20-something before in his life. He’s managed to grasp that Ace is _different_ to the other Survivors, but that’s as far as he’s been able to get by himself, and so now he’s come to Evan to have the matter explained to him.

He’s made some astute observations, mind you. Max has noticed, for example, that Ace is a bit more heavily-built than the other Survivors, that his voice is deeper, that he moves differently. In fact, Max earlier reflected out loud, he’s more like _you,_ Evan.

Evan explained at the time that that’s because he’s older, too. People tend to get bigger and deeper as they get older, it’s just what happens over time. But then, of course, he’d also had to explain the caveat that they don’t really _have_ time in the Nightmare, so Max is unlikely to ever see this actually happen to anyone, and Jake had really expected Max to struggle with a concept that he couldn’t observe for himself, but he’d seemed happy enough to simply take Evan’s word for it.

There are other things that Max is more concerned about now.

_“... Evaaaaaaan.”_

Evan, having just leaned back against the tree behind him and set the broken trap open in his lap again, groans loudly.

“For fucks sake, _what,_ Max?”

“Why is that, though?”

“Why’s what?”

“Why do people change and get bigger when they’re older?”

There’s another exasperated _“For fucks sake-”_ under Evan’s breath before he steels himself and attempts to answer yet another question that is, frankly, more philosophical than he has the energy for.

“Because that’s the way it’s supposed to work, Max,” he explains, wearily. “That’s supposed to be the way of the world, isn’t it. Things are supposed to _change._ That’s why him upstairs makes it rain sometimes, isn’t it, because he knows we’re supposed to live in a world that changes, and he has to mix things up now and then so we don’t all lose our fucking minds.”

 _Rain?_ They get _rain_ here? Jake suddenly finds himself feeling deeply envious. They don’t get _rain_ back at the fucking campfire. There was some snow once, but it was scarce and shitty and never gathered anywhere, and Jake and his friends had all been so disappointed and disgusted by it that it would have been better if the Entity hadn’t bothered at all. But they get _rain_ here! That’s fucking horseshit! What the fuck!

Then again, he’s here now, isn’t he. Maybe he’ll get to see it before too long.

“Huh.” Max considers this. “... Does that mean people’re smaller when they’re less older, Evan?”

“Yes, Max. When people are _younger_ rather than older -” Evan patiently emphasises the new word. “- they’re smaller.”

“So…” Jake can all but hear the gears turning in Max’s head. “... I guess really younger people gotta be really small, huh, Evan.”

“That’s right, Max.” He can definitely hear Evan’s jaw beginning to clench, though. “People who are very young tend to be very small, yes.”

“... Huh.”

There’s another stretch of silence after that, and, once again, Evan fishes a tool out of the shoddy bag in the grass next to him and continues working to fix the trap’s broken mechanism while Max sits next to him and takes some time to digest the information he’s been given. This time, the quiet manages to last for quite a while, and Jake breathes a soft sigh of relief. Max is going to get his head bitten off if he keeps prodding Evan like this, and Jake would, if he’s honest, much prefer not to see it happen. It’s clearly not Max’s fault that he is the way he is, and Jake, now that he’s come to understand him - at least a little - can’t really bring himself to wish Evan’s anger upon him for it.

Max is still a monster, Jake reminds himself. He’s still a monster. But not even a monster deserves a beating of the calibre that Evan is capable of doling out for something that he can’t help.

But hey, maybe he’s happy now. Maybe he’s going to sit quietly and let Evan get on with his work.

_“... Evaaaaaaan.”_

Alas.

Evan takes a big, deep breath.

_“What.”_

Max looks at him, utterly oblivious to the pit of simmering rage that he’s staring into.

“Where do people come from, Evan?”

As soon as he hears Max say this, Evan’s whole form just _sags,_ and there’s a long, long pause before he says anything at all.

And, still standing next to Jake, Philip slowly brings his hand up to cover his eyes, burying his face in his palm.

“... Evan?”

“Max.” When he finally answers, Evan’s voice is strained, as if he were in actual, physical pain. “Max, please. Don’t ask me that.”

“Why not?” Oblivious. Utterly fucking oblivious. “Don’t you know?”

“I do know, Max, I do know.” Good lord, he’s trying _so hard_ not to blow up in Max’s face; Jake can see nearly every muscle in his body tensing up. “It’s just that it’s _very complicated,_ and I’m _very busy,_ and _very, very tired._ Alright?”

“Hmph.” Max frowns, looking away. “You’re always tired.”

“Yeah,” grumbles Evan. “I wonder why.”

As Philip quietly straightens himself up, Jake leans out of the window frame to nudge him in the ribs with an elbow.

“I bet you’re glad you don’t talk much now, huh? Otherwise it could be you explaining it to him.”

Although he doesn’t speak, because of course he doesn’t, Philip’s shoulders shake, just a little, suggesting a chuckle.

It’s been a pretty eye-opening experience, hanging out in the clearing, yes siree.

And not only because of Max and his weird shenanigans, either. For example, Jake has learned, since venturing out of the woods and into the clearing, that the Killers have their own campfire. Or at least, he assumes it’s their own campfire. He hasn’t actually seen it yet, because he’s also learned that the campfire is where Myers spends his time. That’s why he’s seldom here in the clearing; that son of a bitch has no interest in anything but the Entity’s trials, and, from what Jake has come to understand, all he ever does is linger at the campfire, waiting to be called.

“The Work”, Evan calls it. Myers is here to do The Work.

As for the others, they only come when they’re called, and now that Jake is out here, where they are, and he can see what they see, he’s come to understand how the Killers know when they’re needed. Every now and then, he’ll see their heads turn - because they always notice before he does - and, when he looks in the same direction, he’ll catch sight of it, a fire’s flickering light in the deep darkness beyond the trees. It’s usually Evan who’ll take it upon himself to go there first, but Max gets excited enough about trials that he’ll beat Evan to it almost as often, and then there’s the Nurse, too, who’ll show up briefly on her way to the campfire. Philip just tends to stand around looking anxious and wringing his hands until someone else heads into the woods ahead of him, though.

He really doesn’t seem to be very enthusiastic about The Work.

However, while it’s true that there are plenty of new things that Jake has seen since he came here, some things, it would appear, are the same on both sides of the fence.

Peace and quiet are wonderful things, when one can manage to get them, and it turns out that Evan can actually get quite a lot done when he doesn’t have someone constantly interrupting him. His traps are expertly mended, and now he’s sitting cross-legged on the ground, cheerfully admiring his handiwork as he tests them, over and over, opening each of them up, prodding the plate with a stick and watching the jaws snap viciously shut. He’s very fastidious about his work, and if he’s noticed that Jake is flinching with every loud, clanging snap, he doesn’t care.

Those fucking traps have been Jake’s bane far too often, and he can’t even hear that awful noise without some dreadful phantom pain shooting up his leg. No wonder they’re so fucking terrible; they’re Evan’s bread and butter, and he pours an enormous amount of effort into keeping them pristine and reliable.

Christ. It’s chilling.

The distraction, then, when Jake looks up and realises that the trees at the edge of the clearing have parted while he wasn’t watching them, is a welcome one. This, at least, he already understands: the Entity intends for them to _go somewhere,_ presumably so that they’ll be able to amuse themselves for a while and get some exercise.

The reaction is instant. Before Jake can even mention this development to Philip, Max is already making a dash for the path through the woods that’s been revealed, and it’s his loud, excitable cheering that jolts Evan out of the little happy place that he’s been resting in and back to reality.

“Oi!” He’s immediately rushing to get to his feet. _“Oi!_ Don’t - don’t fucking - _Max!_ Max, get back here! Philip! Fuck me - _Philip!_ Catch him, for fucks sake!”

Then it’s Philip who’s scrambling, almost flying away from the shack to run after Max and stop him before he gets too far, and, thank goodness, he’s quick enough to catch up and grab Max by the wrist in no time at all. A moment later and he’s leading Max back to the clearing, where Evan is waiting for both of them, fists planted firmly on his hips. Jake tries not to wince at the thought of the earful that Max is most certainly about to get.

“Max, how many times have I _fucking_ told you -” Yep, here it comes. “- You _don’t_ run off into the woods by yourself! What happens when you run off into the woods by yourself, Max!?”

“Uh.” Max’s head dips, and he shifts uneasily as Philip’s hand slips from around his wrist. “I get lost.”

“Every fucking time, Max! You stay with me and Philip, understand!?”

“Yes, Evan.”

“Good. Come on, then. Let’s get us gone.”

Before Evan can start walking, though, Philip’s fingers close around his arm, or at least, as much as they can, and Evan looks expectantly at him.

“Hm? Oh.”

Following Philip’s gaze, Evan turns around to look at Jake, and huffs. Jake, meanwhile, promptly stops swinging his legs, gently pressing his knees together, and gulps softly as he looks back, meeting eyes with him, unable to keep the nervous grin from tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He waves meekly at Evan. Evan remains unmoved.

Still, Philip insists, giving him that same pleading look that Jake has seen so often, and it’s only with that that Evan finally grudgingly yields, shoulders dropping as he glances away for a moment, then back at Philip again.

“Alright, alright. Go and get him, then. It’s probably best he comes with us anyway, else Myers is gonna turn up and eat him alive, isn’t he.”

As he’s summarily being fetched and ushered towards the path by Philip, Jake can’t help but feel somewhat at odds with himself. Whilst it’s most definitely true that Evan is belligerent and short-tempered, watching him now, yet again grabbing Max and turning him away to get him walking so they can all set off, he doesn’t seem nearly so much like the mindlessly aggressive brute that Jake has always pegged him to be. The thought that he might actually, really be a person after all - and yet still go about killing and maiming the innocent people that the Entity has chosen to be his victims - is incredibly jarring, and Jake’s not sure how he’s going to make it all line up neatly in his head.

It’s all he can think about as they’re passing through the woods together. The more Jake dwells upon the things he’s seen, the less sense it makes. They react so fucking _casually_ to seeing that campfire light up in the distance; Evan especially responds to it like he’s being called in for a shift at his shitty job with weird hours and too much overtime, and then, when the Entity is finally satisfied with his work and gives him some time to rest, he comes home, exhausted and fed up, like someone’s overworked father. It’s his _job._ It’s his fucking _job,_ and it’s as mundane and wearisome to him as pushing papers or working a production line.

(Jake leans towards the latter, in Evan’s case. He’s got the demeanor of someone who’d do factory work or construction more than any kind of cushy white collar job, really. Evan’s a site foreman if Jake’s ever seen one in his life.)

Although, as much as everyone does The Work, he’s yet to hear anyone _talk_ about it. Nobody complains about the Survivors being little shits, or brags about their victories, or anything. Once or twice, Jake’s heard Max ask Evan to explain words or phrases that he’s heard Survivors say during a trial, but that’s as close as anyone’s come to actually discussing The Work.

And, conspicuously, nobody talks about the Entity, either.

How long have they been here? That might go some way towards explaining it, if they’ve just been stuck here in the Nightmare committing atrocities for so long that they’ve become desensitised to it. Jake supposes that the Killers are no more able to leave or choose their fates for themselves than he or any of his fellow Survivors are, after all. But then, how did they get here? How is it that they’ve wound up on this side of the fence rather than the other? Then again, as he’s asking himself this, Jake realises that he does, at least, have one example that he knows a little about.

Myers.

He ended up on one side of the fence, his sister on the other. From what Jake remembers hearing, back when he was a person, he just up and decided that he was going to do murders for a living one day, and that was it. Coming here hasn’t really been a massive change of scenery for him. The Entity obviously took a look at his credentials, was impressed by his previous experience and promptly brought him on board, and here we are.

But if that’s how it works, then that must mean…

_… Oh god._

Jake, after spending most of the trek so far wholly absorbed in his own thoughts and more or less just following the sound of his present company’s conversations - well, mostly the sound of Evan repeatedly telling Max not to run off - looks up at them all with a new, eerie kind of wonder.

What did these people _do?_

Holy shit, even Philip. He’s so quiet and gentle, but he has to have done _something_ to end up in the Nightmare, doing what he does. What the hell did he do? How did he get here? Still, it’s hardly as if Jake can just _ask,_ is it. He can’t imagine that going well.

There’s no time to think about it, though. They’ve arrived.

As they approach the treeline, Evan gives Max a nudge towards the new place that they’re being turned out into.

“Go on, then.”

And Max really does go. After being sensible and well-behaved for such a long time, here is a safe, enclosed place where he can finally run around and go nuts as much as he wants, and, as they all watch him make good on the offer of freedom he’s been given, Jake’s sure that he hears Evan chuckle.

Once more, Philip’s hand is softly at Jake’s back, guiding him out of the woods and into what turns out to be the shitty wreckers yard that Jake has seen so many times before. The Entity has been kind enough to give him and his friends the run of this place between trials often enough, and for the first few times it was a bit of fun; there’s plenty of trashed cars to climb onto and into, plenty of windows to smash and what have you, but, like everything else in the Nightmare, it soon lost its charm, and now, coming here, Jake is just about as bored of it as he ever was.

The Killers aren’t bored, though. Immediately, Jake sees a difference between what he and his friends would be doing here, and what they’re doing: whilst Jake’s friends would pretty much just be continuing with their usual campfire activities, namely talking shit to each other, complaining about things and making jokes at each other’s expense, Evan, Max and Philip are actively busying themselves, like they’re here with a purpose. They’re searching for things, Jake shortly realises, as he watches Evan casually lift up and overturn an old wreck to look underneath. They’re finding bits and pieces that they can take home with them and use.

Christ, they’re so much more constructive than the people Jake is used to hanging out with. Why the fuck didn’t he think of this? Why didn’t _anyone_ think of this?

… Wow, he’s just tipping that car up like he’s looking under the couch for something, isn’t he. Jake makes a mental note, not for the first or last time, to try to stay on Evan’s sweet side.

Suddenly, there’s a cold rush of air that sends a horrific shiver up and down his spine, and for a moment, he sees her - the Nurse. But it is only for a moment, and then she’s gone again. Before he can mention her to anyone, though, Philip is tugging on his sleeve with restrained urgency, pointing at something across the yard.

“Huh? What’s up?”

Philip leads him a little way, not far, shortly stopping and pointing up at something snagged at the top of a tumbledown section of wall. It’s a large, white sheet. Philip wants it, but the top of the wall is fairly high up, and he can’t reach it. However, he’s beckoning Jake towards him now, kneeling down to offer his shoulders. Odd, really, that he’s better at making his intentions known than some of Jake’s friends who actually talk.

Luckily, Philip is strong enough that helping Jake onto his shoulders is a quick and painless task, and it’s equally easy for him to stand up and brace against the wall, even with Jake’s weight on his back. Once Jake, too, eventually stops wobbling enough to get to his feet and stand up straight, Philip’s coveted prize is no longer quite so far out of reach, and although he has to stretch a little - a bit of an awkward maneuver when your feet are planted on someone’s shoulders rather than solid earth - within a couple of tries, he’s caught the thing just enough with the tips of his fingers to pull it down.

Hopping back down to the ground, Jake actually finds himself feeling rather accomplished. Who knew that teamwork could actually work? Fucking remarkable. Philip, too, is just pleased as punch, giving Jake an enthusiastic pat on the back and a shake of his shoulder.

Unfortunately, they don’t get much time to enjoy their dirty, slightly ragged trophy.

_“Get out of my sight, you disgusting freak!!”_

It’s a voice Jake’s never heard before - a woman’s voice, harsh and cruel and full of wicked, boiling vitriol. It could only be the Nurse, then, and Philip is already bolting away towards it, suddenly having far greater priorities than his crappy sheet to worry about. It’s all Jake can do to hurry after him, though he’s got no hope at all of keeping up, especially not while he’s got a heavy sheet bundled up under one arm.

Within seconds, he’s lost sight of Philip entirely, and all he can do is follow the searing stream of abuse that he can hear echoing through the yard.

_“I told you to stay away from me!! You’re an idiot!! Can’t you understand anything!?”_

He’s found her soon enough, and she’s cornered Max against the wall of the ruined shop. The poor bastard is just standing there, hunched with his arms around his head, trying his best to turn away from her and wincing every time she gestures angrily at him.

“You’re a waste of bones and organs!” Whatever he’s done, she’s not pleased about it. “What are you good for if you can’t even follow the simplest instructions!? Your parents should have _drowned_ you!”

Mercifully, this doesn’t continue for long. Evan’s heard the racket too.

 _“Oi!”_ He thunders onto the scene, barking at the Nurse from the moment he sets eyes on her. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Sally!? Leave him alone!”

“Mind your own business, MacMillan!” The Nurse snaps back at him, backing away from Max as Evan forcefully barges between them, shoving Max behind himself to shield him from her. “Can’t you to keep this… this _walking abortion_ under control!?”

“Fuck off!” bellows Evan, furious. “He was bein’ civil! That’s all he ever does! You’re a fucking wretch if he can’t even _greet_ you without you tearin’ his face off!”

“Why should I not!? Look at him! He’s a mistake of nature!”

Max, now clinging to Evan for all he’s worth as he hides behind him, flinches when the Nurse jabs a finger venomously in his direction.

“He’d be better off dead!” she hisses. “You’d be doing him a favour if you took him down to the lake and drowned him! In fact, why don’t I do us _all_ a favour and -”

_“- IF YOU LAY A FINGER ON HIM, I’LL TEAR YOU APART AND GIVE WHAT’S LEFT TO LISA!!”_

Evan is towering over her now, enraged, fists clenched, roaring in her face as he swats her hand away, all while poor Max cowers behind his back and trembles. Is that really all he did? Did he really only try to _greet_ her? To say hello? Good christ, this is awful. But what can Jake possibly do? It feels as if he should do _something,_ but he doesn’t want to risk going anywhere near Evan now - he looks like he’s ready to swing, the instant someone gives him an excuse.

But, as ever, thank goodness for Philip. While Evan and “Sally” are still screaming and booming at each other, he deftly slips in, puts an arm around Max’s shoulders, and wordlessly leads him away, removing him from the erupting warzone. Neither Evan nor Sally seem to notice, being far too invested in verbally tearing each other apart by now.

“By all means!” Evan’s pressing forward now, closing the space between them. “Have a go at him if you get pissed off at what he does! But don’t you _dare - EVER! -_ get on at him for what he is!”

“What he _is_ is a freak!” Sally spitefully retorts, even as she’s being forced to back away. “You’re _all_ freaks!”

“What,” snorts Evan, disdainfully. “And you’re not!?”

“Not like you!” seethes Sally. “I’m not like you!”

“Oh, but you are.”

The words come through Evan’s gritted teeth in a sinister growl as he pushes even closer, his mask barely inches from the filthy bag that covers Sally’s own face.

“You _are,_ Sally. You’re _exactly_ like us. You’re just another one of _his_ toys. Just like me. Just like _Max._ Only, he’s got better manners than you, hasn’t he.”

“Don’t you dare compare me to that…” She’s struggling, still, to stand her ground. “That… _aberration!”_

“Why not? We’re all the same here, Sally. Whether you like it or not.”

Even as awful as Sally is proving herself to be, and even as brutal and horrifyingly capable as Jake knows she is, there’s still something acutely uncomfortable in seeing Evan loom over her and invade her space like this. He must be three times her size, and he’s making every effort he can to be as physically threatening as possible, as if he weren’t already threatening enough. While it’s true that she’s brought it upon herself - it’s only happening at all because Evan came to protect Max from her abuse - his anger is beyond terrifying. Jake’s never seen anything like it, and despite everything, he’s praying with everything he’s got that Sally will be wise enough not to lash out at him, that she won’t give him a reason to hit her.

“We’re all the same,” Evan tells her, in a gravelly rumble. “You, me, Max, Philip, Lisa - even that cunt, Myers - we’re all the same. You’re no better than any of us. And you know, just as well as I do, that _him upstairs_ is gonna get fed up with you someday, isn’t he, and when he does -”

Sally backs away, and Evan moves after her without missing a beat.

“- mark my words, you rotten cow -”

His voice is a low, repulsively intimate snarl as he bristles at her.

“- I will be waiting for you at the bottom of the _pit_ that he throws you into.”

He rigidly emphasises that word, “pit”, almost spitting it into Sally’s face.

 _Please._ Jake knows she can’t hear him, but inwardly begs her regardless. _Please, just leave. Just vanish._

For a few agonising heartbeats, she hesitates, weighing up the merit of sticking around to argue her point against this abominable behemoth. Is it worth it? Just to press the issue? Just to have the last word?

And then, in the blink of an eye, Sally is gone, and it’s only now that Jake realises, as the adrenaline starts to drain away, just how tightly he’s been hugging the bundled-up sheet in his arms. He’s not the only one having to take a few breaths to soothe himself, either. Evan, too, is still greatly unsettled, and Jake decides that it’ll be best to just leave him to huff and grumble by himself, not wanting to risk becoming a convenient outlet for his unspent ire.

He needs to find Philip, that’s what he needs to do. And Max. As often as Jake’s been telling himself not to grow too attached to the Killers, the sheer malevolence that Sally levelled at him was profoundly vile for how unfair it was, and god, he’d looked so fucking _frightened._ He never thought he’d see a terror like Max _frightened._ Surely, Jake would be no better than Sally if he didn’t at least go and check on him.

That’s all it is. He’s just trying to be decent. That’s all.

Finding Philip and Max turns out to take a while, however. Philip wasn’t fooling around when he rescued Max, evidently, because when Jake does manage to catch up with them, they’re well, well away, at the furthest end of the yard, sheltering in what’s left of a wrecked schoolbus. While Philip is just as silent as ever, he’s sitting on the floor of the bus with Max, his arm still around Max’s shoulders as he placidly allows him to huddle up against him and hide there.

Again, Jake has to wonder if he’d be doing the right thing by approaching them, but maybe the thing Max needs the most right now is a distraction.

“... Hey.”

Philip, at least, perks up a bit when he sees Jake clambering into the bus, sitting up a little straighter and enthusiastically beckoning him with his free hand. As he makes his way over, though, despite his best efforts to tread lightly and carefully, Max doesn’t quite manage to look at him, and, having seen what he has of Max, Jake can’t help but feel that there’s something very sad about seeing him so quiet and avoidant. He’s not himself; Sally’s really done a number on him, and it’s pretty awful to think that this happens with any kind of frequency. The way Evan and Sally were arguing about it made it sound like it might be a common occurrence, whenever they’re unfortunate enough to cross paths.

For the few moments it takes him to hand Philip his much-apprized sheet, Jake wonders if he should say anything. It probably won’t go down well with Evan if he does, but at the same time, it doesn’t seem right just to ignore Max when he’s so obviously distressed and out of sorts.

Fuck it. Even if Max is a monster, Jake isn’t.

“... You okay there, buddy?”

Max hesitates, eyeing Jake pensively for a few moments, reluctant to reply to him.

“... I ain’t s’posed to talk to you,” he murmurs, eventually.

“I know.” Jake makes an effort to speak softly as he sits down on the floor of the bus too, close, but not too close. “But it’s okay, I promise. I’m not scary. I’m not gonna be mean or yell at you like Sally does.”

This does little to reassure Max, who shifts uncomfortably. Philip hugs him just a little tighter.

“That… that ain’t why,” Max says. “It’s… that ain’t why.”

“It’s not?” Jake tilts his head to one side. “Do you mind telling me what is, then?”

“... Evan says I won’t do the work no more if I start talkin’ to you.”

Ah. So _that’s_ the trouble. If Max starts getting chummy with someone like Jake, someone he’s supposed to be happy to chase down and bludgeon half to death, he’s going to find it difficult to perform in the Entity’s trials, and Evan’s been trying to keep him out of trouble. Hell, it’s been difficult enough for _Jake_ to rationalise the shit he’s seen and had done to him during those trials since coming here. It’ll be even tougher for poor Max, whom Jake has suspected for a while to be about as deep as a saucer of milk. He doesn’t need to be grappling with nasty shit like the duality of man or whatever other horrible dichotomy might arise out of it when he struggles enough to button up his own shirt.

But, then again, Jake’s been stuck here with Max and his bunch for an age already, and there’s no telling how long it’ll take for him to make his way back to his proper place, where he belongs. Can he really just avoid talking to Max or having anything to do with him, with that being the case? Besides that, Max needs all of the support he can get, as far as Jake can see, when things like this can happen. Evan and Philip have their hands full with him.

But, then again, _again,_ it’s hardly as if Jake can just tell him to stop doing the work. If he goes ahead and tries to strike up some kind of rapport with Max now, he’s going to have to do it whilst also telling Max that it is _totally fine_ for him to continue killing and maiming his friends. Needless to say, it’s a discomforting thought, which is to say nothing of all the times Max has killed and maimed Jake himself, besides.

Does he have a choice in it, though? It’s his job. The Entity’s put him here to do the work. Will there be consequences if he _doesn’t_ do it? Surely, Evan wouldn’t be so keen to keep him on the straight and narrow if it didn’t matter.

Not that it’s going to change anything if Jake reassures him that the killing and maiming is all well and good. He was going to do it anyway. Once again, Jake’s real dilemma is with his own guilt, with doing “the right thing” so that he can feel at ease with himself.

It’s pointless, isn’t it?

“Hey.” Jake shuffles forward a little, sitting cross-legged across from Max. “Listen. It… it doesn’t have to be like that, does it? I mean, it doesn’t have to mess anything up, if you talk to me, right? You’re a smart guy, you know the difference between doing the work and being here with your friends, don’t you?”

He doesn’t fail to notice that Max is starting to sit a little more upright, that he’s not leaning on Philip quite so much anymore. He’s listening, slowly beginning to make some eye contact as the tension in his posture dissipates.

Jake presses him just a bit more, hoping to make good on this advantage while he’s got it.

“I mean… it’d just be another Rule, wouldn’t it? There’s lots of those already, one more wouldn’t hurt, just that it’s gotta be different inside of a trial to how it is out of one. You’re clever enough to make that work, right, Max?”

Max’s gaze drifts around the interior of the bus a few times. He’s thinking about it, and Jake says no more after that, giving him some space to turn it over in his head.

Philip, meanwhile, seems quite content to let all of this play out, or at least, he hasn’t objected to any of it yet. That’s the impression that Jake’s been able to get of him so far, though; anything that helps avoid conflicts is just fine and dandy in Philip’s book. He’d much prefer for everyone to be friends. So the only problem, really, is going to be -

“Max?”

Evan. _Shit._

“You in here, Maxie?”

It’s taken him a while to make his way over, but he’s here now, and the whole bus shifts and creaks under his weight as he steps inside. Jake, quickly realising just how big of a problem Evan actually is, turns and looks pointedly in the other direction, bracing himself for the anger that he’s absolutely convinced his presence here is going to provoke. Holy shit. This was such a bad idea. After being told, in no uncertain terms, that having any sort of interaction or vicinity with Max is strictly off-limits, here he is, sitting with him on the floor of an old schoolbus, trying to tell him that Evan has been wrong about something. Evan is going to be _pissed._

Even as Evan approaches, though, that anger doesn’t come, and when Jake does gather up the courage to look, it turns out that he doesn’t even feature on Evan’s list of priorities right now. Instead, Evan has come for Max, calmly moving to his side and dropping to one knee, and the moment he’s close enough, the very second he’s within reach, Max is clumsily scooting over to throw his arms around him and hug him. It takes Evan a few beats to react, but he does, after a little hesitation, awkwardly put one arm around Max, and pat him lightly on the back with the other hand, more or less just letting him get on with it.

“Yep, that’s… there you go, my lad. Come on, now. You’re alright.”

“No I’m not.” Max’s voice is muffled against Evan’s shoulder.

“... Alright.” This time, Evan’s patience doesn’t sound strained or forced. “You’re not alright, then. That’s fine.”

Like this, while he’s still sitting on the floor as Evan kneels, Max can almost curl up underneath him, and Jake gets the impression that he has, once again, been waiting for Evan to show up this entire time. Philip is reliable and well-intentioned, but Evan’s the one you can hide behind, the one who can protect you from things. You don’t have to be scared of anything if Evan’s there with you.

“Why’s people keep sayin’ that stuff to me?”

“It doesn’t matter, Maxie.” Evan squeezes him, just a little. “She’s wrong. She doesn’t know you like we do, does she.”

“No.”

“No, she doesn’t. You’re _ours,_ alright? Me and Philip, we’ll look after you. Don’t you fret about anything Sally says.”

“Okay.”

It’s the most quietly that Jake’s ever heard Max speak, but it’s the sniffle and the muted sob that come after it that cut him to the quick - and Evan must have heard it too, because his demeanor changes, immediately.

“Oh, Maxie. Come on, now.” Evan really does hug him, now, sheltering Max as he grabs desperate handfuls of his overalls. “You’re alright, mate. Come on. You’re alright.”

_Jesus. He’s just a kid. He’s just a little kid._

It’s not that Max is stupid, or slow, or that he’s been punched in the head once too often, or anything else that Jake might have assumed about him. He’s just _stunted,_ a child running around in a monster’s overgrown skin, and Evan and Philip are all he’s got. Well, mostly Evan. Evan’s his favourite, and Philip has a tendency to just kind of fade into the background when Evan’s there to look after him, just as he has now, sitting obligingly out of the way and keeping to himself.

But of course, Evan does, eventually, have to address the elephant in the room.

Or rather, the Survivor.

Max is still hanging onto him when he finally lifts his head to look at Jake.

“... You’d better not be in here causing trouble, boy.”

It sounds unnervingly similar to that low, menacing growl that he levelled at Sally a little while ago, and Jake yet again finds himself rooted to the spot, his voice sticking bitterly in his throat. It’s one thing to let Max wander too near and get chased away for it, but this situation is considerably more charged - Max is _right there,_ he’s _vulnerable,_ and Jake is terrified, now, of giving Evan the impression that he needs to protect Max from _him._

“... He’s not.”

“Hm?”

Evan glances down at Max, who has, at last, loosened his grip just enough that he can pull away and rub his eyes dry on the back of his wrist, still sniffling.

“He ain’t causin’ trouble, Evan.”

“Oh?” Evan sounds sceptical. “Is he not?”

“Nn-nn.” There’s another loud, runny sniffle. “He’s good, he’s bein’ nice. He’s helping.”

“Max, I told you -”

“- I know.” Max swallows, trying to put himself back together. “But, but… it… I can do it, Evan, I promise, I’ll do the work, I will!”

“Is that so.”

Christ. Even though Jake can’t see Evan’s eyes, can’t see the look on his face under his mask, he knows that Evan’s glaring at him. His gaze feels like it’s burning holes in him, and the bus, an enclosed space with precisely one exit - an exit that Evan is blocking just by being there - suddenly feels far less like the safe, sheltered haven that it was a few minutes ago.

Just as Jake is seriously starting to wonder if he can get enough of a run up to vault over Evan if he needs to, though, the now-familiarly light touch of Philip’s hand on his back startles him, although only for the briefest moment. Philip has come to kneel next to him, to plead his case, and Max picks up on it straight away - he’s _definitely_ not slow, that’s for damn sure.

“C’mon, Evan, please?” He tugs on the strap of Evan’s overalls, eliciting an irritable grumble that he blatantly ignores. “C’mon, let him be nice, Evan. I’ll do the work, I promise, if you just let him be nice, I promise I’ll keep on doin’ the work.”

Evan’s still glaring. He hasn’t moved an inch. Still, Max is relentlessly persistent, and doubly so for knowing that Philip is backing him up, too.

“Evan. C’mon, please?”

“Christ, alright, alright, fine,” huffs Evan, caving. “Fine. But I’d better not end up regretting this, do you understand me?”

“Yeah!”

That’s put the smile back on Max’s face, and sufficiently so that his hug promptly turns into an excitable shot at wrestling. Evan, though, feeling beleaguered enough already, doesn’t have the patience for it.

“Oi, stop that. Fuck off.”

He’s trying to peel Max off himself, then, and makes a very valiant effort to distract him after that, in a bid to prevent further attempts at horseplay.

“Look. Fuckin’- _stop,_ I said. _Stop,_ for fucks sake.” Pinning Max to the floor of the bus does, admittedly, make it easier to hold his attention. “Look, didn’t you say you wanted to mess with your chainsaw, or somethin’?”

“Uhuh.” Max is wholly unflustered by it. “I’mma make it go faster.”

“... Make it go faster. Right. Well.”

Letting Max up, Evan gets to his feet, and takes a moment to tidy himself up.

“Let’s do that, then, shall we?”

“I can’t,” says Max, as Evan grabs him by the arm and pulls him up, too. “I don’t have the parts.”

“Well, that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it. Come on.” He nudges Max towards the big hole at what used to be the front of the bus. “You tell me what bits you need, and we’ll find ‘em, won’t we.”

Philip’s on his feet too by then, shortly helping Jake up as well, but before they can all step out of the bus, Evan pauses, looking over his shoulder at both of them. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t seem particularly irritated or aggressive; it’s just a _look,_ a brief glance cast over the pair of them, possibly of reflection or consideration, and then he’s moving again, following after Max.

It’s hard to know what Evan might have been thinking. As Jake steps out of the bus, though - with Philip’s hand, as ever, at his back - it does begin to hit home, somewhat, that something really quite important has just happened.

Evan has _accepted_ him, or, at the very least, accepted his being there.

That’s a big deal! Evan’s the one in charge around here. What he says goes, and if he says that Jake is allowed in, that he’s allowed to be there and _be nice,_ as Max put it, then that’s it, isn’t it? Jake’s a member of the group now.

It is, honestly, the exact opposite of what Jake had intended for when he’d wound up falling in with them. Still, maybe it’s for the best. The woods are dangerous, and, compared to the Killers, Jake is a tiny, weak, defenseless thing. He probably needs Evan’s protection more than anybody here, when he thinks about it, and with any luck, as long as he’s respectful and follows Evan’s rules, he’ll have it.

Plus, being as tiny, weak and defenseless as he is, Jake can’t really participate all that well in digging for useful junk, either, but it’s not so bad. Philip’s got his sheet. He’s happy. And Max is happy too, now that everyone’s together. There’s no sign of Sally anywhere (suggesting some considerable wisdom on Sally’s part), so he’s back to running around and having a good time, and Jake has to admit, despite everything, that there _is_ something weirdly endearing about Evan asking Max to “help” him tip over a car so that they can get at the parts in the underside.

Eventually, though, they do have to leave, and head back to the clearing with the prizes they’ve found. They’ll be able to amuse themselves for a while with those.

The trek through the woods is just as long as it was the first time, and Jake is no less conflicted about the things he’s seen and caught himself thinking, but it doesn’t feel quite so much as if he’s been thrown into a pit of lions anymore. The Killers have turned out to be a far more reasonable bunch than he’d been giving them credit for, not nearly as mindlessly dangerous as he’d assumed - or at least, Evan, Max and Philip have; Sally’s turned out to be pretty much exactly the sort of eldritch horror Jake had had her pegged as, if not even worse than that for how deliberate she was in her cruelty. Fucking hell, she’s just awful; it’s one thing to be given the shitty task of driving the Entity’s sadistic games, but Sally _chose_ to turn on Max. Nobody told her she had to do that.

Awful. Fucking terrible.

Well. It’s still a mess. It’s still just about as far a cry from what Jake had had in mind when he’d realised he was stuck on the wrong side of the fence, and it’s still a deeply, deeply troubling state of affairs, getting mixed up with the folks who live here.

_But._

But. It might just be alright. Maybe, just maybe, it might be alright.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DRINKAN GAEMS.

The clearing is conspicuously quiet. There’s barely a sound to be heard anywhere but the rustling of wind through the trees and the occasional harsh call of a crow - are they crows? They might be ravens; Jake’s never been too sure, and he’s got a hunch that the Entity might not be sure, either - and if it weren’t for the inherent weirdness of the place, it would actually be rather idyllic. The reason for this blessed peace is very simple: Max isn’t here. He’s in a trial, and, as much as they like Max, Evan and Philip both are making the most of his absence. 

Evan is, as ever, tending attentively to the tools of his trade, mending broken traps, improving the intact ones, cleaning up and sharpening that god-awful cleaver, things like that, and he’s doing it all with the characteristic focus and dedication that Jake has grown used to seeing from him. Everything has to be  _ right, _ or at least, as right as something can be in this forsaken place, and Jake reflects, not for the first or last time, that Evan’s devotion to his work would be admirable, if that work wasn't so fucking incorrigibly grisly. The way he studies his tools while he’s evaluating the quality of his handiwork is akin to a master craftsman, and it’s plain to see, now, why he struggles to get anything done while Max is following him around and demanding attention. This rare bit of respite is exactly what he needs. 

It’s just a shame that he can’t seem to catch enough of a break to get some rest, really. By the time he’s finally done with all of his fixing and fixing up, Max is going to be coming back, and that’ll be the end of it. 

Meanwhile, Jake’s been sitting quietly with Philip for the last however-long, watching him draw strange sigils on his bell. It’s very soothing, actually, watching him like this. Every mark Philip makes, whether it’s with soot or mud or chalk or anything else, is drawn very slowly and deliberately and with enormous care, and even if he were able to explain what any of them mean, Jake wouldn’t want to interrupt his concentration by asking. Whatever they’re meant to convey, there’s a fair bit of ceremony to the process of creating them, to imparting intent upon them. Then again, perhaps it’s for the best that Jake doesn’t know what they’re for. It can’t be anything pleasant. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. 

But, then again, saying that, Jake does have questions. He has an awful lot of them, and really, Evan would be the one most qualified to answer them. Only, that would mean disturbing him, wouldn’t it, which is a horrible idea. Anyone could see that that’s a horrible idea. Asking Evan to give up even a shred of his time or effort feels like it would be a gross overstep. 

… Maybe asking nicely would help.

The idea seems laughable, to begin with, but the more Jake thinks about it, the more he looks back on what he’s seen of Evan while he’s been here with him, it occurs to him that, actually, maybe asking nicely  _ would  _ help. Despite the line of work he’s in, Evan has shown himself to be surprisingly reasonable - most of the time - and, you know, maybe he  _ will _ be receptive to someone who asks him politely for something, instead of just tugging on his arm or grabbing one of the metal shards lodged in his shoulder or obnoxiously drawling his name to get his attention. 

At the very least, Jake supposes, if he asks politely, very politely indeed, Evan might not lose his rag at him if it turns out that he doesn’t have the time, energy or inclination to answer a few questions. Still, the old “the worst he can do is say ‘no’” line doesn’t offer the same comfort that it used to when Jake was a kid. Saying “no” is far from the worst thing that Evan could do. 

Jake is curious, though, and curiosity is quickly becoming the all-consuming drive that his boredom used to be. The longer he stays here and the more he learns about Evan and Philip and Max and the other Killers, Jake consistently finds that he has  _ more _ questions rather than fewer. It’s maddening. That’s not how it’s supposed to work, damn it. Gaining new knowledge never made him so fucking greedy for  _ more knowledge _ when he was in school. 

(If it had, he might not have ended up here in the first place, Jake reflects, somewhat bitterly.) 

_ Fuck it.  _

Philip doesn’t even glance away from his bell and his odd sigils when Jake gets to his feet and walks away from him.

Although, as brazen as Jake might have felt when that “Fuck it” initially crossed his mind a moment ago, the confidence soon drains out of him when he’s a partway across the clearing, with Evan sitting only a handful of yards away, and he realises exactly what he’s about to try to do. He hesitates, remembering that he’s only allowed to be here at all because Philip and Max like him, or they seem to, anyway, and that Evan is, at best, tolerating him because he likes  _ them. _ Jake isn’t a member of their little group, and he’s going to have some regrets, he fears, if he doesn’t take care to be mindful of his place amongst them. 

Evan could crush him, effortlessly. The price for misstepping could be very high indeed. 

Well, he’ll just have to mind his manners, won’t he. Jake has manners, he reminds himself, as he cautiously closes the distance between himself and Evan, and stops to stand maybe a couple of feet away from him. The thought of interrupting him is scary, though, and he only realises how long he’s been stood there, trying to think of what he ought to say to get Evan’s attention, when Evan solves the problem for him. 

“You’re hoverin’, boy.” He doesn’t look up from his work. “What d’you want?” 

“I, uh.” Jake swallows. “S, sorry if I’m bothering you. I just.” He shifts uneasily. “There’s, there’s some stuff I wanted to know, and I figured you’d be the guy to ask, that’s all. But,” he hastily adds, “But, I mean, only if you’ve got the time, though. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna be a pest. Y’know, just, if it’s not any trouble. There’s some stuff I’d like to know about.” 

Now Evan does stop what he’s doing, pausing for a beat before putting his cleaver down, and then for another before turning to look at Jake, then down at his cleaver, and then at Jake again. 

“... Bloody hell,” he chuckles, eventually. “Hark at the fucking p’s and q’s on you! What a  _ delightful _ change of pace.”

He shakes his head, mightily amused.

“You really are in the wrong place, aren’t you, mate. Good grief. Listen,” Evan says, leaning towards Jake, the hint of a laugh still lingering in his voice, “I appreciate you tryin’ to be decent, so I’ll make a deal with you. I’m just about finished with all of this, I should think, but Max is gonna be back soon, isn’t he. If you’ll help Philip keep him occupied for a bit, just long enough that I can get some sleep, I’ll answer your questions for you.” 

Yet again, Jake is taken aback by just how  _ reasonable _ Evan is willing to be, if someone will only prove themselves willing to be reasonable first. 

“What d’you say, Man-Cub?” Evan leans a little closer. “Can you do that for me?” 

“S, sure.” Jake nods, trying to sound more certain than he is. “Yeah. I can do that.” 

“Good. Then we have an agreement. That’s what we like.” He’s gathering up his tools, then, and getting to his feet. “Max’ll be good if you explain things to him properly and treat him with respect,” he explains, plainly. “He likes you, and he likes Philip. You shouldn’t have any trouble with him.” 

“Okay.” 

After that, it’s all Jake can do to watch him brush himself off and leave to put his things away, and then he’s left wondering what, exactly, he’s just agreed to. 

_ … Wait, what did he call me?  _

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Jake’s talked to Max before and seen plenty of him; he’s not a bad sort, and Jake is fairly confident that he’ll understand if he just  _ explains _ that Evan needs some time to rest. It’s like Evan said, isn’t it? He’ll be good, if Jake explains things to him properly. That’s all it’s going to take, and Philip’s going to help too, probably, hopefully, so it’ll be fine. 

It’ll be fine. 

Yeah. 

By the time Jake comes back to him, Philip is finished with his bell and his soot and his mud and his chalk, and he’s all ears as Jake explains the bargain he’s just made with Evan and asks him if he’ll help out. He nods, just as eager as ever to lend a hand, and a good portion of Jake’s anxiety evaporates on the spot. 

Thank goodness for Philip. 

And, sure enough, when Max shortly returns from his trial, Philip is there by Jake’s side, waiting for him, when he comes barrelling into the clearing. Max has evidently had some success; even without his having to mention it, he’s already smiling and laughing as he runs to them, and he’s still laughing as Philip deftly sidesteps what would have been a hefty tackle and throws his old sheet over him like a matador with his cape, even as he trips and tumbles to the ground a moment later. 

Untangling himself from said sheet does, thankfully, take a bit of wind out of Max’s sails, though, and it’s a lot easier to get his attention once he’s sitting on the floor and clumsily pulling it from over his head. Seizing the opportunity while he has it, Jake crouches next to him, and offers him a smile.

“Hey, buddy. Did you have fun out there?” 

“Yeah!” Max is still grinning. “I did good!” 

“Oh, that’s…” Jake does his best to keep smiling. “... That’s great, Maxie. Hey, listen, though,” he goes on, quickly changing the subject. “Evan’s gotta take a nap for a while, okay? I thought maybe you and me could hang out while he gets some rest. What d’you think?”

“Oh. Huh.” Max takes a moment to consider this. “... Okay,” he says, shortly. “What d’you wanna do, though? We can’t play, can we, ‘cuz you’re too much littler than me.” 

“Yeah, that, that’s true, isn’t it.”

Jake thinks about it. Even if either he or Philip  _ were _ fond of horseplay, it wouldn’t keep Max occupied for long, would it, and really, he would like to do right by Evan, now that he’s counting on him. Maybe the best way to keep Max busy would be to get him talking about something that interests him, then. He’ll entertain himself, more or less, if Jake can just get him talking. 

“Well…” Jake peers up at Philip, who looks expectantly back at him. “... I was thinking,” he says, looking back at Max, “Would you mind showing me your chainsaw? I’m not smart about fixing things like that, but you’re really good at it. Maybe you could show me how it works, huh?” 

Max’s face lights up at that. 

“Oh, yeah! I can do that! But -” He hesitates. “- You ain’t allowed to touch it. It’s mine.” 

“I won’t, I won’t, I promise. I promise I won’t touch it,” Jake says, raising his hands. “Not unless you tell me I can. Okay?” 

He seems content with that. 

“Okay.” 

So that’s the three of them, then, Max, Philip and Jake, sitting in a little circle on the grass next to the shack, the two of them listening while Max tinkers with the chainsaw in his lap and talks, at great length, about its functioning. He doesn’t know the proper names of any of the parts, but he knows what they all do, and he’s very enthusiastic about it. Max’s chainsaw is his prized possession, perhaps his only possession, when Jake takes a moment to think about it, and even if his coordination and fine motor skills aren’t the best, one can afford to be a bit heavy-handed with things like sprockets and oil pumps. He takes good care of it. 

It’s strange, listening to Max talk. For the most part, he sounds American - southern, specifically - but every now and then, a word or a phrase will come out sounding distinctly British,  _ English, _ in fact, and as soon as Jake figures out what he’s hearing when that happens, it occurs to him that these must be words and phrases that Max has picked up from Evan. 

Max really does rely on Evan for an awful lot, doesn’t he. 

Every now and then, while Max is engrossed in what he’s doing, Jake steals a brief glance across the clearing. Sure enough, Evan’s still there, having propped himself up against the trunk of a tree, arms folded and head bowed. He certainly  _ looks _ asleep, although how he could be at all comfortable like that is a mystery; most people would be sitting with their back against the tree, but there’s Evan, resting somewhat awkwardly on his left shoulder. Then again, most of Evan’s back and right shoulder are studded with shrapnel and metal shards that would make it difficult, to say the least, to sit any other way. This must be the best he can do. 

“... Hey, Max?” Jake turns back to Max, while there’s a lull in his chatter. “Can I ask you something?”

“Huh?” Max looks up from his handiwork. “What’s that?” 

“I was wondering - how come Evan doesn’t like that Myers guy?”

“Oh, him? He ain’t got no manners,” replies Max, sourly. “That’s why. When he showed up, we tried to be decent, only he just spat it back in our faces, didn’t he. He don’t wanna talk to nobody or do anybody any favours, all he does is sit around by the fire waitin’ to be called. Fuckin’  _ rude. _ That’s why Evan don’t like him.” 

“Really? That’s… that’s it?” 

“Well, yeah. There’s rules, even if you ain’t in a trial, y’know. You gotta be decent.”

Well now. That’s a revelation, isn’t it. Still, Jake supposes, when you’re all stuck together in a place like the Nightmare, it pays to have a policy of basic decency towards each other. You can’t all just do whatever you want, or you’ll drive each other crazy - a bit like Jake’s friends back at their own campfire do, as a matter of fact. 

But that’s the difference between them and Evan, isn’t it? The Survivors are just a bunch of kids, with the exception of Ace, who doesn’t behave much like an adult himself, but Evan is, as far as Jake can tell, older than that, more mature. It makes sense that he’d understand the need for a rule like that, the need for  _ fairness, _ and that he’d enforce it on his fellows. No wonder the clearing is such a far removed place from the one Jake is used to. 

“... But y’know,” Max adds, lowering his voice, “I think there’s somethin’ else, too.” 

In unison, Jake and Philip lean in with theatrical secrecy. 

“Don’t say I said so, but I think…” Max glances furtively over his shoulder at Evan, still sleeping, before leaning in too, speaking in hushed tones. “... I think Evan’s  _ jealous _ of him.” 

“Really?” asks Jake, his own voice a whisper. “How come?” 

“Well, see -” Max takes another shifty look around. “- Myers only got here a little while ago. Before he showed up, Evan was always the best at doin’ the work, but with Myers bein’ here ‘n’ doin’ all them trials, ‘n’ doin’ ‘em  _ good, _ I think Evan’s mad that he maybe ain’t the best no more.” 

Holy shit. Jake wasn’t expecting to hear an actual  _ secret. _ But is Evan really that petty? The same guy who pours so much effort into his keen sense of fair play and decency? It seems a little odd. 

“You… you think?” 

“Uhuh.” Max nods. “Ever since Myers came here, Evan’s just been tryin’ to keep up with him all the time. If I wanna go do trials, I gotta beat him to ‘em, now, or else he’ll take whatever’s goin’ just so’s he can do as much work as Myers does.” 

“Wow.” Jake finally sits back, frowning. “No wonder he’s so tired all the time.” 

“Yeah,” says Max, sadly. “He works real hard. But I’m glad you’re here to help,” he remarks, brightening up a little. “Maybe things’ll be better now.” 

“Yeah.” Jake, once again, does his best to smile. “Yeah, maybe they will.” 

Fucking hell. He’s been here too long, he’s getting in way beyond his depth with these guys. Max  _ likes _ him, for crying out loud. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work, he’s not supposed to be getting cozy with them like this. He’s  _ comfortable, _ Jake realises, making friends, and that creeping feeling that he’s somehow betraying his fellow Survivors, wherever they are, is slowly inching its way back into his heart after a lengthy absence. 

Ahh, guilt. Jake can’t honestly say that he’s missed it, but at the same time, he does feel as though he deserves it. He’s sitting here babysitting and listening to gossip while his friends are, no doubt, still suffering and dying somewhere in some other shitty little place, and there’s a particularly stinging pang that comes with the realisation that he hasn’t thought about them much lately. Obviously, it’s just business as usual for them, all of that, and they’d still be suffering and dying just as much whether Jake was there doing it with them or not, but all the same, it’s… 

… It’s not right. It’s not  _ fair. _

It’s been a while, too, since the last time Jake tried to find his way home. He can make the excuse that Myers is out there somewhere, lurking, waiting for a chance to strike, but it doesn’t seem like excuse  _ enough. _ If Jake were decent, upstanding, if he were  _ fair, _ he’d be making  _ every effort _ to find his way back to his friends, wouldn’t he? He’s not doing enough. He’s  _ comfortable _ here. That’s terrible. He’s terrible. 

Max has gone back to fiddling with his chainsaw. He’s happy enough, and Philip seems content with the peace and quiet too, leaning back on his hands as he sits cross-legged in the grass. If there were only some sunshine, Jake reflects, this would be a better time than he’s had in years, and maybe, you know, maybe it’s  _ not _ all that terrible, if he’s having such a positive impact on this place. Just look at all the  _ good _ he’s doing by being here. That’s got to be worth something, hasn’t it? Surely.  _ Surely. _

It’s getting harder to visualise them as the same Killers he’s so used to running from. They don’t seem like the same individuals, somehow. They are, and Jake knows that they are, but it’s just, everything’s so different now, and, and. 

And. 

It’s still a mess. It’s just a different kind of mess now, isn’t it. 

Jake feels Evan’s footsteps before he hears or sees him approaching, but the fact that he’s up and about gives Jake cause to wonder just how long they’ve all been sitting there. 

“Well, isn’t this nice,” Evan remarks, walking over and ruffling what little hair Max has. “We should do this more often. And look, we’ve got a visitor.” 

“Huh?” 

Following Evan’s gaze, Jake turns around. 

Myers is lingering just beyond the treeline, his outline partially obscured by the trees and the shadows between them, and the sudden sight of him gives Jake such a start that he almost ends up falling backwards into Philip’s lap. 

_ How long has that fucker been there!? _

Everyone’s eyes are on him, then, but he stays put regardless, even as Philip begins to visibly bristle at him. Evan doesn’t budge or look away either, even as he speaks. 

“Max.” 

“Yeah, Evan?” 

“What do we say to Mr Myers?”

“Hee.” 

Max grins, sitting up a little straighter as he looks over at the interloper at the edge of the clearing. He takes a deep breath. 

_ “FUCK YOU, MYERS! GO HOME!!”  _

“Ha ha!” Evan’s laugh is loud and harsh. “Ahh, there’s a good lad, Maxie.” 

At that, Myers seems to think better of being there. A heartbeat later and he’s turning around and leaving, and Evan is shouting after him that he’d better not come back. Jake has to admit, there’s something rather cathartic about hearing someone call Myers a prick. 

“Right.” Evan rubs his hands together. “Now that’s dealt with, I believe I have a bargain to uphold.”

He taps Jake on the shoulder. 

“On your feet, Man-Cub. We’re going for a walk.” 

“O, oh. Uh.” Jake hastily picks himself up. “Okay.” 

“Now, Max,” says Evan, sternly, “You’re not to cause any trouble for Philip, understand? I don’t wanna come back and find you’ve been making a nuisance of yourself.” 

“I won’t.” Max does still have his chainsaw in his lap. He’s got something to keep him occupied. “You’re gonna come home soon, right?” 

“Soon enough. Have you got any of that shitty moonshine lyin’ about?”

“Yeah, it’s in the box. But leave some for me, okay? I don’t got a lot of it.” 

“I will, I will. I’ll leave some.” 

“And you better come home this time, okay?” 

“I will, Max. I’ll come home.” 

“You gotta promise, Evan.” 

“Alright, alright. I promise, I’ll come home. Are you happy?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Good.”

It seems there’s little else to be said after that, and, once he’s ducked briefly into the shack to fetch his bag and what Jake can only assume to be the aforementioned moonshine, he’s off. 

“Come on, then.” 

He gives Jake a nudge towards the woods, and starts walking. There’s not much else Jake can do besides follow him, waving to Max and Philip as he hurries after him. 

Evan is tall, much taller than Jake, and his strides, though unhurried, are long. It’s tough keeping up with him, and Jake finds himself moving almost at a jog just to keep pace. Does he know where they’re going? Maybe he’s planning to get Jake away from the clearing and ditch him in the woods, or worse, to see if he can’t send him home himself. It was, after all, only because Philip and Max pleaded his case to Evan that he’s been able to stay here at all, and it’s awfully plausible that Evan might just be making some distance before he disposes of him. 

But they keep walking, and it doesn’t happen. In fact, after a while, Evan stops, giving Jake an opportunity to catch up to him. 

“Oi. Keep up.”

“Sorry,” breathes Jake, coming to Evan’s side. “You’ve got longer legs than me. Where are we going?” 

“I dunno.” Evan shrugs. “I thought we’d just walk and see where we end up.” 

“Oh, okay. But… can we walk slower? I don’t wanna wind up on my own out here.” 

“Yeah, that’s fair.” Evan takes a moment to look around. “I bet the cunt’s followin’ us already, even if we can’t see him. You stay close to me, alright?” 

“Okay.”

So that’s what Jake does. It’s far easier to stick by Evan’s side now that he’s slowed his pace. 

“So.” Evan only half turns to him as they go. “You said there were some things you wanted to know.” 

“Oh! Oh, yeah.” He’d been so much expecting this to turn out to be something sinister that he’d almost forgotten the reason they’re out here at all. “Yeah, there’s… there’s a couple of things. If it’s not any trouble.” 

“You did a good turn for me,” Evan says, simply, “So I’ll do this one for you. Go ahead. Ask.” 

“Man. Where do I start?” 

“Take your time.” 

“Uh, well…” 

There is, actually, one question that’s been particularly pressing on Jake’s curiosity lately. 

“... Evan?”

“Mm?” 

“About… about Max.” 

“Yes?” 

“Is he… is he your son?”

_ “What.” _ Now Evan looks at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? What’re you trying to say, that we look alike or something?” 

“No! No!” Jake panics, backpedalling just about as fast as he can. “That’s, it’s just, you, you seem to spend a lot of time on him, that’s all, I didn’t mean -” 

“Alright, alright, I get it. Calm down.” Evan sighs. “He’s not mine. He’s not Philip’s, either. But I’ve seen how you are with him, and you know as well as I do that he’s not all there. Someone’s got to take care of him, haven’t they, and Philip can’t do it by himself.”

The way he puts it, it’s as if he isn’t the one that Max follows around all the time, like Philip isn’t the one who helps  _ him _ out with Max, but Jake knows better than to mention it. 

“I guess so.” 

“He’d get into mischief if we weren’t there to keep an eye on him,” Evan explains. “He’s good at the work, very good at the work, but he’d just be running wild like a fucking animal outside of it otherwise. I tell you, he’s come a long way since he came here, bloody hell.” 

“What’s…” He pauses, considering whether he should ask or not. “... Why, though? I mean, what’s up with him? What happened?” 

“None of your fucking business.” 

Jake puts his head down at Evan’s blunt refusal. 

“Okay. Sorry.”

Although it’s a far more lenient response to an overstep than he’d expected, it’s enough to discourage Jake from asking anything more for a while, and Evan doesn’t press him when he doesn’t speak up again. Funny; Jake thought he had a heap of questions before, but they’ve suddenly slipped from his mind. Despite everything, Evan still frightens him, and maybe that’s for the best. He’s supposed to be frightened of him, isn’t he? 

There’s a long stretch of silence, after that, but Evan keeps walking, leaving Jake with little choice but to keep following him. Eventually, though, it’s Evan who breaks that silence.

“Oh, fuck me.” 

He’s stopped, and Jake, looking up, sees the reason why. The woods have given way to a vast cornfield, and, just beyond it, a tall, tumbledown house looms ominously. Evan huffs irritably.

“I hate this fuckin’ house.” 

“Yeah,” Jake sighs. “Yeah. Me too.” 

“Still.” Evan straightens up, “Beggars can’t be choosers. Come on.” 

This time, Evan isn’t interested in finding anything useful to take back to the clearing, instead making his way over to the front of the house and sitting down heavily on the steps there, taking a while to bend forward and stretch his back before finally coming to rest properly. He looks at Jake. 

“What’re you standing around for, boy? Sit down. Let’s have that talk, shall we?” 

Well. Jake isn’t about to argue with him. 

“Listen,” says Evan, leaning towards him as he takes a seat on the steps too, “I appreciate you helping me. It’s not often that I get a chance to rest.”

“Yeah, I… I gathered that. I guess the Entity keeps you pretty busy, huh?” 

“Yeah, you can say that again.” 

“... Why d’you do it, though?” 

“Do what?” 

“The work. Why do you do it?” 

At that, Evan gives a long, weary sigh. 

“You say that like there’s gotta be a reason,” he replies. “Same as you, _ him upstairs _ brought us all here, and we either play his games or face the consequences, don’t we.” 

The Entity. Though “him upstairs” is clearly a nickname, it isn’t spoken with any affection. 

“Max seems to enjoy it,” Jake observes. “He seemed pretty excited when he got back earlier.” 

“Yeah,” Evan nods. “Yeah, he does. He thinks it’s all a game, I’m sure. He doesn’t really understand what he’s doing. It’s a benefit to him, really. As long as he thinks it’s all just a bit of fun, he won’t think to argue about it.” 

“You wanna keep him on the straight and narrow, huh?” 

“You have to understand,” says Evan, taking the bottle out of his bag. “When you and your lot fuck up, the punishment is built in. One of us’ll catch you and fuck you up, and that, I assume -  _ I hope  _ \- is enough to discourage you from performing poorly in a trial. It’s not like that for us.”

There’s a loud pop as he twists the cork out of the neck of the bottle, and Jake watches him, with some fascination, as he puts it to the mouth of his mask,  _ through _ the mouth of his mask, and takes a hefty gulp from it. That’s fucking  _ bizarre; _ the mask completely obscures Evan’s face, but if the mouth is a hole, surely Jake ought to be able to see what’s underneath through it, shouldn’t he?

Christ. Fuck this place. Nothing makes any sense. 

Anything that Jake might have been thinking is quickly pushed aside, however, when Evan shoves the bottle towards him. 

“Here.”

_ Oh god. What do I do. _

He can smell the stink of alcohol even before he’s lifted the bottle to his face. Drinking whatever this stuff is seems like a supremely ill-advised idea, but, then again, it figures that it’d take something that smells like paint thinner to wash away the misery of the Nightmare, doesn’t it. 

Evan, seeing him hesitating, offers some encouragement. 

“You don’t have to chug it, boy. Just taste it. You’ll thank me, believe me.” 

Jake just barely manages to get a mouthful of the stuff past his lips and hastily swallow it before it slugs him in the face. It burns. Oh god. It burns. He’s coughing, then, and he can’t stop. Evan, meanwhile, wordlessly takes the bottle back, and lets him get on with it. He might have patted Jake on the back at one point, but Jake really can’t tell; by the time he’s finally finished coughing, he can feel the sweat beginning to gather under his eyes, and he can’t be sure if his dizziness has come from lack of breath or the moonshine. 

“There, now.” Evan, at least, sounds tickled. “Isn’t that better?” 

“Ohh.” Jake rubs his face, his voice croaky. “I can’t feel my hands.” 

“Then we’re on the right track, aren’t we. Anyway.” 

Jake stares in horror as Evan leans back and takes another long, oblivion-seeking swig from the bottle. 

“As I was saying.” He’s already speaking just a little more loudly. “It’s not like that for us. And I mean, him upstairs, he does try to give us incentives to do well, sometimes, not a lot, but sometimes, but more often it’s about discouraging us from doing  _ poorly. _ Suffice to say, there’s consequences for failin’ to pull your weight, and I don’t want Max to ever have to find out what they are. The boy doesn’t deserve that.” 

But that implies that Evan  _ does _ know what those consequences are, doesn’t it? 

“... Did you ever argue?” Jake asks, cautiously. 

As he rests with his elbows on his knees, Evan’s gaze is seemingly focused on something in the far distance. It’s a while before he answers, and, when he does, it’s with a deep, slow breath. 

“... I did,” he replies, finally. “Once.” 

Now that he’s managed to blink and rub most of the tears from his eyes, Jake can look at Evan, really look at him, and, after a while, he thinks he’s got a fair hunch about the nature of the Entity’s “consequences”. 

He’d always assumed that the deep gashes that litter Evan’s skin were scars. Both Philip and Max, too, have their share of scars and blemishes, but they all look as if they’re in some state of healing, and now that Jake has an opportunity to actually study Evan, properly, sitting right next to him like this, he’s noticing that he might have been wrong. They’re not scars. They’re  _ wounds. _ They look  _ wet. _ Wet, raw and gaping, and, jarringly, permanently so. They’ve never changed, not since the first time Jake saw him in a trial - he just hadn’t seen them for what they really were until now, having always been too busy running for his life to stick around and look closely. 

Between those awful wounds and the steel lodged into his flesh, Evan must be in constant pain, and it is a marvel, frankly, that he manages to do anything at all, let alone as much as he does. He does the work, and well, and he takes care of Max, plays with him, even, and through it all, he’s  _ a little bit cranky. _ Sometimes, when he’s especially tired and sore, he lashes out, and Jake finds himself astounded, now, that it doesn’t happen more often. He’d pegged Evan as being short tempered. As it turns out, he’s incredibly, remarkably tolerant.

But then it strikes him: what Max said earlier, about Evan being jealous of Myers’ busywork. It’s not simple, shallow  _ jealousy  _ that drives Evan to do as much as he does. It’s  _ fear. _ He’s afraid. He’s scared of what will happen to him if the Entity decides that it’s no longer satisfied with him and the work he does. Evan’s been running himself ragged to keep the bastard thing off his back, and Myers is a threat, a real, genuine threat, for the competition he poses, and not just to him, either, but to Max, too, and Philip. 

Max just interprets it as jealousy because he doesn’t understand the danger they’re all in. He still thinks that the point of the work is to be good at it, not to avoid the punishment that might come from being bad at it. But Evan knows. He knows better than anyone, and he’s afraid. 

_ Jesus.  _

“... Evan?”

“Mm?”

“... Is… is there anything I can do? To make it… hurt less?”

Evan’s reaction to the question is hugely delayed.

“... No.” His voice is barely a whisper when he does finally respond. “No, mate. I don’t think so. But… thanks.”

That’s what the moonshine’s for, Jake supposes, and, as Evan knocks the bottle back for a third time, Jake reaches into his pocket to fish out that last cigarette that’s been languishing in there all this long while. It’s easy enough to light it on the crackling flame of an oil drum fire at the bottom of the stairs, and Evan watches him as he sits down again, taking a drag. 

“... You’re too young to have a habit like that,” he remarks, gruffly. 

“You think?” asks Jake, the smoke pouring out of his mouth as he says it, blowing the remainder out afterwards. 

“Fuckin’ cigarettes. Coffin nails, my dad used to call ‘em,” he says, wagging a finger at Jake. “He’d fuckin’ get on at me all the time; ‘Don’t you start up with those fuckin’ things, Evan! You’ll wind up in an early grave! Smoke a pipe like a proper gentleman!’ Bloody hell.” 

“You want a draw?”

“Yeah, alright.”

There’s a brief trade, then, Jake handing Evan the cigarette, and Evan passing him the bottle in turn. Again, Evan’s mouth proves to be somewhere under the mouth of his mask, shrouded in some weird darkness. Although, it is oddly amusing to watch the billow of smoke come out of the mask’s toothy maw when he exhales. 

Jake makes an attempt to drink the moonshine without flinching. 

He fails. Evan laughs at him.

“Here, Man-Cub.” Evan nudges him, handing back the cigarette, and taking the bottle. “Since we’re asking questions, maybe there’s something you can tell me.” 

“Huh?” Jake looks at him blearily. “Okay.”

“And forgive me if this seems like an odd question, but…” Shifting where he sits, he gives Jake a hard look. “... What was the world like when you left it?” 

“It…” It’s getting difficult to think clearly. Drinking more moonshine might not have been the best idea. “... It was okay, I guess? In what way, what was it like? What d’you mean?” 

“I wanna know how long I’ve been here,” Evan tells him, levelly. “It feels like a fuckin’ age. So, tell me what it was like. Help me work it out.”

“Oh, okay, well…” Jake thinks about it. “... Did you have the internet?” 

“What the fuck is that?” Evan pauses. “... Never mind. No. No, we didn’t.” 

“Okay. Uh. DVDs? Did you have those?” 

“No.” 

“VHS?” 

“No.” 

“... Television?” 

“No.”

Jake winces, growing desperate. 

“... Electricity?” 

“Yes!” He sits up, pointing. “Yes, we had that!” 

Holy shit. Television’s been around  _ forever. _ When the fuck was television invented? Jake’s mind is growing increasingly cloudy, and he realises he’s been staring blankly into space for a good while, trying to figure out when television happened, when he suddenly snaps back to reality. 

“Man.” Even forming coherent sentences is becoming a challenge. “You’ve been here for like, a hundred years, Evan.” 

“Ugh.” Evan’s shoulders sag. “Fuck me. Here, hand me the coffin nail, will you?” 

“Here you go, man.”

“Thanks.”

That’s a shitty thing to find out, that the poor son of a bitch has been here toiling away under the Entity’s yoke for at least twice as long as he lived as a mortal, human person. That fucking  _ sucks. _ And it appears as though Evan thinks so too, because no sooner has he handed back what remains of Jake’s cigarette - it’s not a lot - he’s leaning back on the steps to quaff what’s left of the moonshine. Suddenly, Max’s concerns about Evan drinking everything he has and maybe not coming home seem very sensible.

“H, hey, uh.” Jake peers over at him. “Maybe we should get back, huh?”

“Nah.” Evan coughs. “Fuck that.”

Well, that’s that decided, then. Seeing no other option, Jake resigns himself, leaning back to rest on his elbows, too. A short while later and the cigarette is spent, and Jake, having less respect for the Entity and its designs than ever before, makes a point of flicking the butt onto the ground in front of the house. It’s the most petulant, childish display of discourtesy imaginable, but it’s the best Jake can do. 

All of this has got him rather intrigued about who Evan used to be, though, and what his life used to be like. What did people even  _ do _ before television was a thing? They read a lot of books, Jake assumes, but then, what about music? Was music a thing that people commonly had in their homes back then? When did vinyl records turn up? Did they have anything before that? Anything at all? Honestly, all of this makes him wish he’d paid more attention in school. He might have known some of this stuff if he had done. 

“Hey, Evan?” 

Evan doesn’t budge.

“Mm?” 

He sounds barely awake, like he might be passing out. 

“... What’s your favourite song? Do you remember it?” 

“Hm.” 

That seems to get him moving again, get him thinking. He shifts his weight a few times, pondering the question. 

“... Do you know,” he eventually replies, “I don’t remember it. That’s a pity.” 

“Do you remember  _ any _ songs?” asks Jake, turning onto his side to face him. “Even one?” 

“I must do. Surely.” 

While Evan ruminates, Jake hopes, sincerely, that he does manage to remember something. The thought of someone forgetting something like their favourite song is, to his mind, actually very tragic, and it’s a shame to think that Evan’s been here for so long that he’s forgetting such personal things about himself. Maybe, Jake thinks, hopefully, it’s just a difference in culture; after all, music was pretty much the background radiation of his own life when he was growing up. It was everywhere. Maybe it was different back in Evan’s day. Maybe music wasn’t so widespread or so important. Maybe, Jake hopes, it’s just that music was less memorable back then. 

Hearing Evan’s voice, then, raised in a kind of slow, tired, not-quite-singing-but-more-than-talking rumble is both a surprise and a relief. 

_ “I saw a ship a-sailin’, a-sailin’ on the sea, _ _  
_ _ And oh, but it was laden with pretty things for thee. _

_ There were comfits in the cabin, and apples in the hold,  _ _  
_ _ The sails were made o’ silk, and the masts were made o’ gold.  _

_ The four-and-twenty sailors who stood between the decks _ _  
_ _ Were four-and-twenty white mice with chains around their necks…” _

He trails off, after that, and when he doesn’t speak or move again for a little while, Jake leans in, just a bit. 

“... Evan?”

“I can’t remember the rest,” he murmurs. “Fuck me. We do need to get back, don’t we. Else I’m gonna fall asleep.”

“C’mon, then.” Jake wobbles to his feet, barely managing not to stumble down the stairs. “Let’s go.”

“Give me a hand, will you?” 

Grabbing Evan’s arm and trying to haul him up turns out to be quite possibly the most futile thing Jake has ever attempted. He might as well be trying to move a mountain, but once he’s mostly upright, Evan thanks him anyway - albeit amongst a lot of slurred curses.

They’re about to leave, but, before they head back for the woods, Evan stops, turns back around to face the house, and grumbles loudly. 

“Christ.  _ Fuck  _ this place.” 

He angrily emphasises the word  _ “fuck”  _ by hurling the empty moonshine bottle at the wall with all of his considerable might, shattering the bottle with an almighty smash and splintering a few of the wooden slats that cover the wall. 

Perhaps he and Jake aren’t so unalike at all. 

“C’mon, man.” As Evan stands there and huffs, Jake quietly tugs on his wrist, trying to channel a little of Philip’s gentle persuasiveness by it. “Let’s go, okay?” 

“Alright, alright. Come on, then.” 

The one saving grace of the Nightmare is that, sure enough, you can stumble and stagger around in the woods in whatever direction you like, but you’ll always find your way home eventually. The greater challenge turns out to be in not losing each other amongst the trees, in staying together for long enough to get there.

Initially, Max is excited to see that Evan and Jake have come home, but he stops dead in his approach the moment he sees that neither one of them is capable of walking in a straight line or standing upright, and decides instead to go and fetch Philip. Philip will know what to do. 

Thankfully, Evan is easy enough to handle; all he wants to do is sit down somewhere and pass out, although he is, at least, considerate enough to offer Max a few reassurances that he’s fine and that he just needs a bit of rest before he does it. Max needs them. He’s fretting, and as many times as Evan tells him that he’s going to be fine, that he’s only going to sleep for a little while and then he’ll be alright, it’s not quite enough to settle him. 

“Max, it’s fine.” Jake tries, earnestly, to sound convincing. “I’ll keep an eye on him. I need a nap too, so I’ll stay with him, and then we’ll both be fine. Okay?” 

Max isn’t the slightest bit convinced, but, as always, Philip is there to give him a little pat on the back and a hug, and that seems to be enough to allay his fears. It’s just as well, really. All of Jake’s talk about “keeping an eye” on Evan is transparently bullshit. If he’s to be honest with himself, it’s more that he doesn’t much like the idea of falling asleep in the clearing without Evan there to hide behind, and he’d rather stick by him if he isn’t going to be quick enough to run if Myers shows up. As ever, Philip is good and well-meaning, but Myers isn’t scared of him. Jake needs Evan. 

So, that’s what he does, and Evan, leaning on his left shoulder against the wall inside the shack, doesn’t object to his presence. 

Perhaps it’s true that Jake didn’t manage to ask every question he has, but he’s learned enough regardless. Besides, it’s hardly as if there won’t be time to ask more questions. The Nightmare runs on bargaining and making deals, so maybe, if he can do another favour for Evan a little way down the line, he might get the opportunity to probe him again later on. 

Jake makes an effort not to lean against Evan as he dozes off. It’s got to be hard enough for him to get comfortable enough to sleep at the best of times. 

Even in the absence of the endless pain, misery and death that come part and parcel with the trials Jake’s been dodging by being here, there’s still a deep and very much ingrained element of horror in this place, he’s come to realise. It’s just not a horror that he could plainly see. 

That, and hangovers can still happen here.

Man. Fuck the Nightmare. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'd better watch your step on that slippery slope, Man-Cub.

For some time, Jake has been sitting in his now-usual spot, the empty window frame of the shack, looking at the crude weapon that he’s been given. It’s a simple thing, little more than a piece of scrap metal, sharpened to a cruel point at one end and wrapped with strips of cloth at the other to give it a rudimentary grip, but Evan shoved it into Jake’s hands a little while ago, and Jake has been staring at it, contemplating it, ever since. 

Evan, as ever, hadn’t had the time or patience for pleasantries when he’d given it to him, and had only thought to offer an explanation for it when Jake didn’t immediately understand why he’d done it. 

“... This is a shank.” Stating the obvious was all that Jake had thought to do at the time. “You’re giving me a shank.” 

“Yes,” Evan patiently replied, “And if Myers gives you any trouble, I want you to stab him in the fuckin’ eye with it.” 

“Oh.” Jake’s gaze drifted down to the thing in his hand again. “O, okay.” 

“You need to sound more sure about it than that, Man-Cub. Look, hold it the other way. Yeah, like that. That way, you’ve got your forearm to shield yourself with, haven’t you, and you can put some proper force into your strike. Yeah, there you go. Good lad.” 

And that had been it, more or less. Content that Jake would be able to put up at least some degree of resistance if Myers got to him before anyone else could help him, Evan had promptly excused himself and gone to continue toiling away at his brutally endless work. 

There are multiple facets to this chillingly practical “gift”, Jake has realised, in the time between then and now. The thought that Evan would be concerned enough to give him a means to defend himself is quite something all on its own, but the more Jake thinks about it, the more significant it turns out to be. 

Notably, for instance, Evan doesn’t afford himself a lot of free time. 

Any moment that he isn’t spending plugging away at the Entity’s bottomless list of wretched, futile tasks is an opportunity for disaster, in Evan’s mind, and yet here, in Jake’s hand, is a thing that he has invested at least some time and effort into putting together for the sake of offering his comparatively defenseless guest a little safety. He’s thought about it, realised that he can’t possibly be everywhere at once, and, rather than simply shrugging it off and calling it a lost cause, he’s done his best to solve the problem by sacrificing precious time and energy on a workaround. 

Time and energy which, by all rights, he should be pouring into his work. Even if it was only fleetingly, Jake reflects, Evan chose  _ him _ over his work. That’s an enormous gesture. 

That, and it’s a tremendous expression of trust. In giving Jake this thing, Evan is counting on him not to use it to stab anyone  _ other  _ than Myers in the eye, or more likely the kidney, given the not-insignificant height differences between Jake and his present company, and that’s nothing to be sniffed at, either. 

Still, as he sits there in the window frame, swinging his legs, Jake hopes he’ll never have to use it. Myers doesn’t seem the type to be discouraged by a little stabbing. 

“Aw, c’mon, Evan! Please?” 

“Max, I don’t have time!” 

The commotion in the clearing shortly bumps Jake’s train of thought off its proverbial rails, and he looks up to see a far more typical scene than the one he’s been quietly ruminating on: Max has decided that he’d quite like to wear one of the other shirts that the Entity has given him, but, unlike his usual tattered A-shirt, this one buttons up, and Max does not manage well with buttons, especially not when he’s having to look down at them on his own chest. He’s trying to ask Evan to help him, but Evan is in a hurry to leave for the campfire - there is, as always, a trial to be attended to. 

“Look,” he tells Max, tersely, still walking towards the treeline as he says it, “I have to go, alright? Philip’s about somewhere, get him to help you.”

“I dunno where Philip is!” Max protests, earnestly, following him. “C’mon, please?” 

Now Evan turns around, losing patience, quickly and sharply enough that Max stops in his tracks and takes a step back from him, but before he can snap, Jake hastily interjects. 

“Hey! Hey, Maxie, c’mere! C’mon, I’ll help you.” 

And, just like that, the problem is solved. Thankfully, having Jake around is still novel enough that Max is excited about getting to talk to him, and, at Jake’s well-timed suggestion, he’s eagerly trotting over to accept the offer of help. Evan wastes no time in making good his escape, pausing only for long enough for he and Jake to share a brief glance before quickly going on his way. 

“So.” With Max obligingly stooping just enough that he can easily reach his shirt and its vexing buttons, Jake endeavours to be conversational. “Where  _ is _ Philip? D’you think he went to do a trial for once?” 

“I dunno.” Max shrugs. “Maybe.” 

“He’ll turn up. He always does.” 

“Yeah. He’s good.”

“Yeah, he is, isn’t he. There you go, buddy. Now you’re lookin’ smart.” 

“Yeah!” Delighted, he pats himself on the chest a few times. “Thanks! I gotta go find my hat!” 

“You know where it is?”

“Yeah!” 

“Okay. Go get it, then.”

To his credit, Max does show some considerable presence of mind in deciding to wait until someone comes home before heading off anywhere himself, so that Jake doesn’t wind up being left on his own. The lull gives Jake some time to talk to him, which, really, is no bad thing. It’s always interesting to talk to Max; one always manages to learn something from talking to Max. 

For one thing, it turns out that Evan built the shack, which, when Jake thinks about it, shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Evan’s been here for long enough, and from what Jake has come to understand of him, it seems a lot like he’s spent much of that time trying to make the best of his arguably shitty situation, doing things like enforcing some rules of basic decency amongst his fellows to make the Nightmare somewhat liveable. That he’d have thought to build some kind of shelter for himself - and later, his companions, too - so that he wouldn’t have to hang around in the woods like some kind of wild, uncivilised animal isn’t much of a stretch. 

He would have had time to do it, back then. 

But of course, because of that, Max wants to build something, too. He likes to do pretty much anything that Evan does, but he knows that it would take a long time to build something, and Evan would never agree to it, not now. 

“He ain’t got time for nothin’ no more,” he remarks, forlornly. “He’d just get mad if I tried to ask him to do a big thing like that.”

“Man, that’s a shame.” 

And it  _ is _ a shame, he’s not just saying that. If Jake is honest, it reminds him a bit too keenly of how envious he’d so often been when he was growing up, hearing about all of the cool stuff his school friends did with their families over break when they all came back to their classes at the end of summer. Meanwhile, his own father only had time for him if he was studying, and studying enough to keep pace with his older brother, at that. He would have blown a gasket if Jake had asked him to do something so frivolous as  _ spending time having fun with him, _ like other kids’ fathers did. It felt like bullshit then, and it still feels like bullshit now. 

At least, Jake reflects, somewhat bitterly, Evan  _ would _ spend the time if he had it.

_ There’s gotta be a way to make this work, hasn’t there? _

“... Y’know,” Jake says, after a moment’s thought, “Maybe we  _ can _ still do something like that. I mean, it’s not like you’re all alone, right? Maybe you and me and Philip can work on something, and Evan can drop in and lend a hand when he’s got a minute. What d’you think about that?”

“Huh.” Max’s expression brightens somewhat. “That sounds pretty good, don’t it.” 

“Yeah, I thought so, too. We’ll ask Philip when he shows up, won’t we.” 

“Yeah!”

And, sure enough, Philip does show up, after a while. Predictably, there’s no explanation of where he’s been, but Jake supposes that he must go and take part in trials at least occasionally, just to keep the Entity off his back. It’s hardly as if he would have had an opportunity to explain anyway, even if he’d been able; Max is in far too much of a rush to ask him if he wants to get in on the little “project” that he and Jake have cooked up. 

Philip, of course, is more than happy to get involved in anything that his friends are doing, and cheerfully agrees. 

The only question left, then, is what they’re actually going to build, and Jake isn’t overly shocked when Max simply  _ assumes, _ since it was Jake’s idea to do this in the first place, that he’ll know what to do. Admittedly, he hadn’t thought that far ahead, but it’s nothing that he can’t work out. Surely, if he takes a little while to consider what they’ve got to work with, an answer will present itself. 

There are a few things that the Nightmare has in abundance, like heaps and heaps of corrugated iron, for example. That shit is fucking everywhere. It makes sense that the shack would be made almost entirely out of that stuff, actually - no doubt Evan realised the same, back when he built it. 

Jake wonders how Evan feels about seeing his handiwork copied and pasted all over the Nightmare. Maybe he’ll ask him, if he gets the time. 

And, as a matter of fact, Jake does remember, if only vaguely, reading about something made out of corrugated iron, something that was specifically designed to be so easy to build that the average civilian could put it together in their backyard without instructions. Shit, what was it called? It had a name, a person’s name. For once, it’s not Jake’s fault that he doesn’t recall the details; it might have been mentioned in a textbook all of one or two times, but the pictures, at least, he remembers clearly enough. 

And… Anderson? An Anderson shelter? That sounds right. Nobody here is going to be able to tell him if he’s wrong, after all, and, indeed, both Philip and Max listen intently as he explains. It’s a bunker, Jake tells them, half buried in the ground, a place where it’s safe and quiet all the time - a good place to sleep, in fact. Evan would probably like it.

“So I guess to start with, we’d have to dig a big hole.” 

They’re all sitting on the ground together by now, and Jake draws in the dirt with a stick, hoping to better get the idea across. 

“It’s gonna have to be kinda long, with straight sides, like this, and it’s gotta be deep enough that it’s kinda like this when you stand in it.” 

He scrawls a stick person into the three-sided rectangle he’s drawn, so that the sides of the pit come up to their middle. While it’s true that he doesn’t know a great deal about Max, it seems unlikely that he’d be able to visualise it if Jake just  _ told _ him how deep the hole is supposed to be, if he’s aware of the concept of standardised measurements at all. Still, he seems like he’s picking it up well enough like this. 

“And then, see, you get some big, long pieces of that metal with the wavy edges - y’know what I mean? Yeah? Okay - and you kinda arch it over the top to make the walls and the roof.” 

“That stuff don’t bend easy,” Max astutely notes. “I can’t bend it all that good.” 

“I bet Evan can, though,” says Jake, with a grin. “If we can just borrow him for like, a minute, I bet he could do it, right, Philip?”

Philip nods enthusiastically, making a playful display of flexing his skinny arms. Max laughs.

“Yeah! Evan’s real strong! He could do it for sure!”

That, and, although no one says it, they don’t want to build the thing without Evan being involved in it somehow. That’s the point of doing it, isn’t it? So they can all say they’ve done it together? It’s just, Evan doesn’t have a whole lot of time, so they can’t really ask much of him, but this, at least, ought to be something he can help out with quickly and easily enough. If he’s around to lend a hand with anything else, that’s a bonus. 

After that, Jake says, they just need a few other pieces to make the front and back, and then they’ve just got to take all the dirt they dug out of the hole and throw it over the top. 

“And then it’s done, pretty much. That sounds like something we can do, right?” 

“Yeah!” 

Wow, Max is excited. Jake’s not sure he’s ever seen him with such a big smile on his face, and, now that he’s getting a bit fizzed up about something, the mouthbreathing is starting to kick off, since he can’t breathe through his nose terribly well at the best of times. All of that stops in a sudden instant, however, when something grabs Max’s attention, and when Jake follows his gaze towards the treeline, he too sees that flickering orange light, twinkling like a distant star deep in the woods. 

“Ah, shit.” Max huffs, clambering to his feet. “I gotta go.” 

“Okay, Max.” Jake, meanwhile, stays put, on the ground with Philip. “If you find anything we can use when you’re done, bring it back with you, okay?” 

That puts the smile back on his face. 

“I will! I will!” 

After watching Max head off, Philip softly places a hand on Jake’s shoulder and gives him a gentle shake, a congratulatory gesture. Philip is excited too, apparently, and Jake can’t help but chuckle. 

“Haha, yeah. He’s pretty happy, isn’t he?” 

It’s nice, he has to admit, to feel as though he’s done a good deed. Happiness is hard to come by in the Nightmare, and Philip, still energetically nodding and squeezing Jake’s shoulder, can’t seem to drive home his gratitude, his own happiness, enough.

Philip is such a good sort, Jake reflects, sitting there in the grass with him. The fact that he doesn’t have much to say - or anything to say, really - has rarely proven itself to be an enormous barrier, and he genuinely seems to enjoy listening to anything that Jake wants to talk to him about. For now, Jake’s taking the opportunity to have a hearty bitch and a gripe about his father; all of this business with Evan not having any time to spend with Max has really dredged the whole mess up to the forefront of his mind, and the simple truth of the matter is that if Jake’s father hadn’t been such a monumental asshole, if he’d treated Jake less like a list of achievements that he could brag about and more like a person, Jake wouldn’t have ended up here at all.

He might have been concerned that he’s overstepping by talking so much when Philip can’t talk back, but just because Philip doesn’t speak, it doesn’t mean that he can’t participate in the conversation: Philip is, as always, very mindful about signalling his interest and opinions. He leans in, he nods a lot, he gestures. When Jake tells him what his father said when he dropped out of school, Philip’s hand goes straight over the middle of his chest in scandalised shock. Talking to Philip is  _ great. _

Nevertheless, it feels rude to go on about himself so much, and after a while, once he’s vented a little of his frustration, Jake can’t honestly bring himself to keep chattering away like that. Whilst it’s true that Philip might actually be the first person he’s ever been able to talk to about any of this, and goodness knows, it’s  _ certainly _ the first time in a long while that Jake’s had sufficiently little on his plate to get around to worrying about it again, it just doesn’t seem fair. He really ought to at least ask Philip something, even if it’s just to be polite. 

“... So… I mean… How’d you end up here, anyway?” 

It’s something that Jake’s been curious about for a long time. Philip really doesn’t seem like he’s cut from the same cloth as the other Killers, but he must have done  _ something _ to get the Entity’s attention. The question, however, catches Philip off guard, and enough so that all of his animated gestures abruptly stop as he all but freezes in place. He wasn’t expecting to be asked anything, evidently, and much less something like that. 

Still, once he’s recovered from the initial surprise of being asked to explain something about himself, Philip has to take a moment to think about how he’s actually going to do it, and there’s a bit of a pause until he looks at Jake again. Then, very slowly and very deliberately, he points upwards, and Jake understands, immediately. 

_ Him upstairs. _

The rest of Philip’s explanatory gesturing is far more difficult to make sense of, however. He keeps putting his hands to his head, over his eyes, with increasing frustration when that reassuring look of understanding fails to reappear on Jake’s face. After a while the tension in his fingers becomes so great that he seems to be miming something else, something drastically more desperate, as if he’s trying to claw at his own skull, but he soon stops when he realises what he must look like. Finally, Philip’s hands fall, and he looks pleadingly at Jake, begging him to please,  _ please _ just say that he understands, at least a little. 

The Entity  _ did something _ to him. That’s as much as Jake can gather, and nothing more. If that’s the case, Philip is no different to Evan, playing the Entity’s games under considerable duress, but that’s no surprise. Jake could have guessed that much by himself. There’s obviously something more than that that Philip was trying to convey, but he just couldn’t grasp it. 

“... I’m sorry.” Jake frowns, feeling intensely guilty for having to admit it. “I don’t get it.”

Philip’s shoulders slowly drop at that, and this time, when his hands come up, it’s so that he can bury his face in them. Now that, that’s a sentiment that Jake can well understand, and, as softly as he can, he touches Philip’s forearm to offer him a little comfort. 

“It’s okay, man. I wanna go home, too.”

As comfortable as Jake has become around Philip and his fellows, it’s still supremely terrifying to be suddenly grabbed by him, and it takes Jake a good few frightened, fluttering heartbeats to realise that he’s being  _ hugged. _ Philip is  _ hugging _ him, and the dawning realisation that nobody’s hugged him since before he fell into the Nightmare, since before he sequestered himself in the woods, before he ran away from home, even, makes the switch from fear to dire, starving mutuality jarringly instantaneous. 

Jake almost smothers himself in Philip’s cloak for being so eager to hug him back. 

It’s not too long after that that Max comes home, trotting into the clearing like the cat that caught the canary with the prize he’s brought back with him. 

“I found a shovel!” he loudly announces, waving the aforementioned item around for Philip and Jake to see.  

Philip is quick to reward him with wordless but warm and sincere affection, and Max just eats it up, grinning and laughing that weird hiccup-laugh as Philip puts an arm around his shoulders and enthusiastically squeezes him. Jake’s not nearly brave enough to do anything like that, but he once more finds himself laughing, too. Max’s excitement is deeply infectious for how genuine it is; he might be a handful, it’s true, but he’s more than worth the trouble. Jake couldn’t keep the smile from appearing on his face, even if he wanted to.

“Hey, good job! You wanna dig a hole, Max?” 

“Yeah!” Max’s enthusiasm for this idea they’ve all come up with hasn’t waned in the slightest. “C’mon!” 

Good grief, he doesn’t get tired, does he. No wonder Evan just  _ let Jake enlist himself _ in helping out with Max, he must need all the extra hands he can get to keep him out of trouble. Of course he isn’t going to argue if Jake is making himself such a willing helper. Still, once they’ve all figured out where they want this shelter to be, it’s a simple enough matter to point Max at the task and let him go to town on it, and before too long, he’s standing in a knee-deep pit and still merrily digging himself deeper into it. Philip and Jake share a congratulatory nod for keeping him blissfully occupied.

Of course, it can’t last. Something always has to spoil these things. 

Although he’s never spoken to her, nor had any kind of interaction with her at all, now that he thinks about it, since his arrival here, Jake hasn’t forgiven Sally for the abuse he saw her hurl at Max during their outing a while back. He’s sitting at the edge of Max’s little trench when she passes through the clearing. The urge to narrow his eyes at her proves too overwhelming to quell. 

Max, however, holds no such grudges, and he pauses in his handiwork to cheerfully wave to her and greet her. 

“Hi, Sally! We’re diggin’ a hole!”

There’s a few moments’ silence before Sally reacts, but when she does, Jake can  _ hear _ her nose wrinkling up underneath the filthy bag that covers her head. 

“Good,” she sneers, turning to face Max as she says it. “You can die in it, then.”

As wholly unsurprising as Sally’s response is, Max is still visibly upset by it, his smile vanishing and his gaze drifting towards the ground, and the shovel in his hands. Suddenly, digging a hole isn’t as much fun as it was, and Jake, watching all of this play out in front of him, begins to feel something bubbling up inside of him, a kind of horrible, scalding vitriol, boiling and acerbic and irresistible. 

It’s more than he can bear. 

“Hey!” He’s hurrying to his feet, then, yelling after her. “Hey, fuck you! Don’t talk to him like that!”

Sally’s attention is instantly caught, and she’s drawing herself up, utterly affronted that someone like Jake would dare talk to  _ her _ like that. She doesn’t even speak as she watches him march himself over to her, a full head and a half shorter than she is, all clenched fists and bared teeth, too outraged to be fearful of her. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” he shouts, throwing his hands up at her. “All he did was say hi! Why can’t you just be  _ decent!?” _

“You’re awfully bold for someone who could die so easily,” Sally coldly remarks, finally. “You do realise that your dear  _ pater familias  _ isn’t here for you to hide behind, don’t you?”

“Because you really wanna know what  _ him upstairs _ will have to say about it if you kill me outside of a trial, don’t you.” Jake scowls at her, daring her. “Why don’t you try me, huh?”

Sally hesitates. She doesn’t have an answer for that. 

“Yeah,” scoffs Jake, his expression hardening further. “That’s what I thought. Fuck you. What the hell is your problem?”

“My problem?  _ My  _ problem!?” Sally’s voice quickly rises in volume and harshness - Jake’s struck a nerve, it seems. “What about  _ him!?” _ she asks, bitterly, pointing angrily at Max. “He’s a  _ walking _ problem! He’s -”

“- Oh, fuck you!” Jake snaps, not giving her the chance to go on. “You’re the worst! If you really were a nurse, I feel sorry for anybody who wound up in your shitty care! Don’t you have anything better to do than come here and spread your poison around!? Get lost!”

“He’s a-” 

“-  _ FUCK YOU! _ Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” He’s determined, now, not to let Sally start spouting abuse again where Max can hear her. “Nobody’s telling you you’ve gotta love him, you fucking witch! All you’ve gotta do is  _ be decent! _ Can’t you even do that!? How fucking stunted are you if you can’t even get something like that!?” 

“What business is it of yours, you little brat!?” Sally snaps, bristling. “You’ve got some  _ gall _ to speak to me like that - shouldn’t you be bleeding out and dying on a hook somewhere!?”

“You  _ made _ it my business!” Jake retorts, angrily. “You made it  _ everybody’s _ business, coming over here and wasting all of our time and energy with your bullshit! Your own time, even! It’d be less effort for you to  _ not do this! _ Don’t you realise how  _ easy _ it is to be basically decent!?” 

“... I really  _ am _ wasting my time with you,” Sally says, after a brief pause. “You’re just as much a degenerate as the rest of these worthless miscreations.”

“Yeah, how about you go eat shit, huh?” Jesus, he’s wanted to say that to her  _ forever. _ “The only ‘degenerate’ I see here is you. The rest of us understand basic shit like  _ manners.” _

“Hmph.” 

And that’s the last of it, a disapproving snort before she vanishes into the shadows amongst the trees beyond the edge of the clearing. Presumably, she’ll have a trial to go to, and she won’t be back again for a good while. Jake watches until she’s well out of his sight, knowing better than to turn his back while he can still see her, and it’s only then, when he’s had some time without having to fight anybody, that he realises exactly what he’s just done, and why.

Jake doesn’t need a shovel to dig himself into a hole, it would appear, and it’s a hole that he’s far, far too deep into. The thought of it is enough to make him almost afraid to turn around and look at Max; goodness knows he was barely a breath away from calling him his friend.

Too deep. Far, far too deep. 

When he eventually does turn around, though, Jake is more relieved than he’d like to admit to see that Max isn’t nearly as distressed as he was the last time Sally laid into him. Philip is with him, as ever, patiently standing there in the trench with him and letting him hold his hand, but he soon lets him go when Jake returns to them.

“Wow!” Max exclaims, clambering out of the hole as he comes near. “You yelled at her real good!”

Shouting over Sally to keep her from actually saying anything to upset him pays dividends, it seems. 

“Yeah,” says Jake, with a weary chuckle, “Yeah, I did, didn’t I.” 

“But you’re so little! Weren’t you scared? She could’a hurt you bad!”

“Yeah, I know. But I couldn’t let her talk to you like that, could I? C’mon, let’s forget about her and keep on digging. Evan’s gonna be home soon, so we can show him how good we’ve done, can’t we.” 

“Yeah!”

And it’s as simple as that. 

Sure enough, Evan does turn up a little while later, and Max is excited enough to see him that Jake can feel fairly confident that he’s no worse for wear for what’s happened. Despite having been away and doing the Entity’s work for so long, Evan is surprisingly receptive to Max’s characteristically blunt and tactless attempts to initiate play, and, at least for a short time, he’s happy to be wrestled with. Jake and Philip stay out of their way, and let them get on with it.

However, it’s only a matter of time until Evan notices the trench - “... What’s all this, then?” - and it occurs to Jake, in that instant, that they probably ought to have asked him for permission before they started. Holy shit. They’re going to be in so much trouble. 

That Max is so eager to tell Evan about it does little to ease Jake’s anxiety. 

“We’re diggin’ a hole!” 

“Yeah, no, I see that.  _ Why, _ Max.” 

“‘Cuz we’re gonna build a thing!” 

“Are you, now.” 

Evan is already looking around for Jake as he says it. Jake, meanwhile, is trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible as he shuffles behind Philip.

“And, ah. Pray tell, Max,” Evan goes on, his hands coming to rest on his hips, “Whose idea was this, exactly?”

To Jake’s horror, Max gleefully points straight at him, prompting Philip to step aside and look down at him as if he’s baffled that he’d be hiding there at all. 

“Ah.” Now, Evan’s gaze settles on him. “The Man-Cub. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” 

“See, I told him how’s I wanted to build a thing,” Max is happy to explain. “Just like you did, an’ he had some real smart ideas! So we’re all gonna build a thing now, but we gotta dig the hole first.” 

“... I see. So, Man-Cub.” 

As Evan strolls over, his tone is light and conversational. His hands are relaxed, and Jake can see no tension in his arms or shoulders. Indeed, Philip is quite content to stand out of his way, too, and Jake, having been so, so certain that Evan would be angry, is taking a while to realise that he  _ isn’t. _ He isn’t angry, at all.

“What’re we building, then?” he asks, brightly, looking down at him.

Before Jake can answer, though, Max interrupts, far too excited to keep his mouth shut. 

“Are you gonna help us!?” he asks Evan, his face lighting up. “You’re gonna help us, right!?”

“I might,” Evan replies, the barest trace of mirth hanging in his words. “I might. But I asked the boy a question, didn’t I, Max.” 

“Oh.” Max’s head dips. “Sorry.” 

“Good. Now, then, you, Man-Cub.” He shakes a finger at Jake. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, hm? What are we doing?”

So, Jake tells him. He explains, just as he explained to Philip and Max earlier, what they’re planning to do, what they’ll need - and what they were hoping Evan would be able to help them with. Only if he has the time, obviously. 

To Jake’s surprise, and not to mention, his great relief, Evan is amused more than anything else. Amused, and, he’ll later admit,  _ actually quite impressed _ at Jake’s creativity in keeping Max busy. 

“Bloody hell,” he says, once Max is back in the hole with his shovel, “If I’d known I could convince him to entertain himself by digging a fucking ditch, my life would’ve been leagues easier.” 

Once Evan’s on board, though, the “project” moves along considerably more quickly. Ideas are one thing, but Evan knows how to get things done, knows where to find the materials they need, knows how to put them together so that they stay standing afterwards.

And, sure enough, when Max brings home a few big sheets of corrugated iron from a trial (proudly boasting that he tore them off a roof, an act of blatant vandalism of the Entity’s property that Jake can’t help but be far too tickled by), Evan is all too pleased to lend a hand getting it into the shape that they need. He’s as brilliantly direct in doing it as he is doing everything else: Jake can only look on as Evan simply drops the sheet of iron on the ground, steps on one end of it and leans over to grab the other before forcefully pulling it up and bending it into an arch. 

Fucking hell, it’s difficult not to stare. He looked big in the first place, but now, with nearly every muscle in Evan’s body tensing spectacularly with the force he’s exerting to bend that fucking iron, Jake is finding it harder and harder to look away. Evan is a brute, a beast, and Jake, for neither the first nor last time, is caught between terror and fascination. Once the sheet is bent part way, Evan moves around to the other side of it to push it down the rest of the way, and that’s it, it’s done, and he’s made it look almost effortless.

Trials can’t be very taxing for him, considering the kinds of feats of strength Jake’s seen him pull off while he’s been here. This building business must be a welcome diversion. It certainly seems that way, given how readily he does the same thing another three times with the rest of the iron Max has salvaged, and Jake only ducks away when he finishes with the last one.

_ That’s some scary stuff. Wow.  _

As true to form as ever, though, it’s not long until Evan has to leave again, albeit in a much better mood than usual given that there’s something to look forward to when he returns, and he doesn’t come back empty-handed, either. When Evan reappears in the clearing, he’s carrying something that turns out to be a section of iron fencing, which, he explains, he’s planning to break up and hammer through the corrugated iron to hold the sheets together. 

“What, you weren’t expecting it to just stay in one piece by itself, were you? It’s not like we can weld it, is it.” 

Jake supposes that he wasn’t, but, again, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. Stuff like this is why Evan is in charge, though, isn’t it? His wisdom has been invaluable more than once, and he certainly looks as though he knows what he’s doing. Evan has heaps of tools to hand, presumably intended for repairing and maintaining his cleaver and traps, but he’s using them now to saw up this wrought iron fence he’s brought home into smaller pieces that he can sharpen into pegs. 

This, Jake reflects, seeing him do all of this, must be how Evan made the shiv he gave him. It’s not a quick process by any stretch, and the gravity of the thing hits home all the harder for knowing exactly how much time and energy Evan spent on it. 

He seems happy enough to be doing it, though. It must be a pleasant change of pace, to have something to do besides the work, something that’ll eventually give them all something to show for their effort. The work isn’t like that; the work is just an endless, miserable toil that offers nothing but some scant safety from the Entity’s petty wrath, but this,  _ this _ at least will yield some tangible reward, something they can all enjoy and feel proud of. 

Jake would have given his right arm for something like that when he was growing up. 

He’s about to go and check in with Philip, though, when something peculiar catches his ear. 

_ “I saw a ship a-sailin’, a-sailin’ on the sea, _ _   
_ _ And oh, but it was laden with pretty things for thee…” _

Evan is  _ singing. _ The song he recalled for Jake during their walk some while back actually has a melody, it turns out, and although Evan’s voice is as low, deep and gravelly as always, there’s actually some energy in it for once as he sits there with his tools, grinding an iron shard into a blunt point. 

_ “There were comfits in the cabin, and apples in the hold, _ _   
_ _ The sails were made o’ silk, and the masts were made o’ gold…” _

And there’s Max, sat with him, absolutely captivated. Jake’s never seen him so still and quiet; this must be the first time he’s ever heard Evan sing, and he’s completely and utterly focused on it. Every now and then, Evan will look up from his work to glance at him, no doubt taking note of it himself, and Jake wonders if they’re all going to be hearing Evan sing more often from now onwards. 

Far less soothing, however, is that hammering part that Evan mentioned earlier. He has to borrow Max’s mallet for that, and before Evan even does anything, Max, Philip and Jake all are cringing and getting well out of the way of the noise that they know is coming. Thank goodness, though, it doesn’t take him long - between Evan’s formidable brawn and the weight of Max’s oversized hammer, the pegs he’s made go through the corrugated iron in only a handful of strikes, and they’re all put together in hardly any time at all. It’s no trouble for them all to lift them and put them in the hole after that, and straight away, the shelter looks satisfyingly similar to the pictures Jake remembers seeing in his old textbooks. 

It’s a good feeling, seeing that they’ve managed to do it right. 

There’s only a few more pieces to put together after that - pieces which, Max reveals, to Jake’s great amusement, he’s been repeatedly ripping off of the same roof every time the Entity has made it new again - and the dirt from out of the hole to throw over the top, and the shelter is finished. 

Well, mostly. It’s pretty barren and cold on the inside, not quite having enough headroom for Evan to stand fully upright in it, and although there’s nothing much to be done about the latter issue, there are plenty of solutions for the former. Once again, the Killers are returning from their trials with salvaged supplies, sheets and hay bales and hanging electric lamps that inexplicably still work despite not being connected to anything, and just like that, the shelter becomes a warm and comfortable place, safe and quiet, a good place to sleep, just like Jake said it would be. 

And Evan  _ does _ like it. Max, Philip and Jake are all delighted with themselves, of course, but Evan is especially pleased, if only for the shelter being proof that there can be something else out here besides the work. Jake doesn’t want to guess how long it’s been since Evan’s had something other than the work to occupy his mind, but, looking at him now, stood there with his fellows and admiring their handiwork, back straight, shoulders squared, hands on his hips and head high, it’s like he’s a different person, almost.

Or maybe, Jake thinks, he’s the same as he ever was, before Myers showed up and ruined things for him. Even if he’s too afraid of failure to take any pride in the work these days, Evan can, at least, be proud of this.

And not a moment too soon, either; they’ve not been stood there for more than a little while when some strange, sourceless breeze begins to blow through the clearing and the woods that surround it, carrying on it a fresh, sweet scent that Jake had all but forgotten. 

_ Rain. _

Jake, not having seen or heard or smelled or felt even so much as a drop of rain since falling into the Nightmare so long ago, can’t keep the laughter from rising up inside him and tumbling out of his mouth as the first few drops land lightly on his face. The Killers are nonplussed, though; it’s nothing that they haven’t seen often enough before, and they’re quick enough to duck inside their newly-built shelter and get well out of the weather before the shower turns into a downpour.

Perhaps the Entity doesn’t think that Jake and the other Survivors are hardy enough to withstand harsh conditions like rain. Maybe that’s what it is, maybe that’s why Jake’s intended side of the fence is so bereft of anything normal or natural. Shit, though, it doesn’t matter. There might be tears in his eyes, but he can’t tell anymore. 

The Entity, for all of its faults, flaws and limitations, is plainly nothing short of an expert at reproducing rain. It’s cold and heavy and invigorating and so much like the real, worldly rain that Jake has spent so long missing, and he’s drenched, soaked through to the skin, by the time Philip finally comes to fetch him in, gently but insistently putting an arm around him and steering him towards the shelter. 

Max guffaws at him as he staggers inside, dripping wet. 

“What’s the matter? Ain’t you ever seen rain before?”

He doesn’t have time to think about it. No sooner has he sat down on the thick bed of hay that covers the shelter’s floor, Philip is fussing over him, taking his sopping jacket off him and tossing it into a corner near the rough “doorway”. Jake can’t really argue, and grudgingly allows Philip to take his shirt as well, but soon protests when it comes to his cargo pants. 

“My pants are fine! They’re fine!” 

They’re not fine. They’re so sodden with rainwater and mud that they’re sticking to his legs, freezing cold against his flesh, and Philip can see that just as plainly as he can. It’s an exercise in futility, trying to dissuade him, but Jake’s going to give it a shot anyway. 

“They’re  _ fine! _ Knock it off!” 

Now Evan’s having a chuckle at his expense too, and Jake wishes, bitterly so, that he had the guts to say anything about it. He doesn’t have the heart to swat Philip’s hands away with a great deal of conviction, either. The cargo pants shortly wind up in the heap in the corner too, along with his boots, but mercifully, Jake isn’t left sitting there in his underwear for long. Philip dutifully foists one of his many sheets on him, barely stopping short of wrapping him up in it, and Jake, hastily throwing the thing around himself, supposes that it could be worse.

Philip has quite the collection of sheets and blankets, it would appear, and he’s brought them all into the shelter with him. Everybody gets one, whether they want it or not, and he drapes another two of them over Jake before he’s content to settle and leave him alone. After that, though, it’s nearly silent except for the faint, relaxed breathing of Jake’s companions, and the steady patter of the rain on the ground outside. 

Nothing has ever sounded so marvellous. 

There’s always that creeping, ever-present doubt, however, rearing its insidious head in Jake’s heart as he watches the others make themselves comfortable and prepare for some well-earned rest. 

_ You shouldn’t be so eager to lie down with these bastards, you know. _

Well, he thinks, what’s the alternative? Staying out in the rain, cold, alone and defenseless? That’d just be the height of stupidity, wouldn’t it. It’s been a while since he last saw Myers, so he must be due a visit by now, surely, and there’s no way in hell that Jake is going to sit out there by himself and wait for him while the people who’d protect him and keep him safe are all asleep. Fuck that. 

To say that he’s only in here because of that  _ would  _ be a bit of a reach, though. Jake can be honest enough to admit that, at least to himself. 

But at the same time - and this is a bizarre thought, Jake realises - this must be the safest place in the whole Nightmare. It’s a thoroughly weird concept, but it’s true. Evan’s there on his left, having set himself down with his back to him, and then Philip’s on his other side, curled up under another one of his sheets, the three of them at the back of the shelter while Max is resting up against the wall nearer to the door. Max isn’t asleep yet. They’d all know about it soon enough if Max was asleep. Max snores when he’s asleep, and to this day, Jake doesn’t understand how Evan and Philip can just  _ tune it out _ the way they do. It’s going to sound horrendous in here, holy shit. 

That’s something to worry about later, though. For now, Jake is tired, suddenly, perhaps because he’s found himself in a relatively warm and comfortable place for the first time since, well, ever, it feels like. Besides the odd feeling of security that comes from being huddled up between two other people so much larger than himself, hay is a very passable thing to sleep on, when there’s enough of it, and between that, the pile of sheets he’s bedding down under and the soft, subdued background noise of the rain, Jake is soon drifting off with damning ease. 

It’s real sleep, too. No weird visions, no games, no fever dreams. Jake hasn’t had real sleep since… well, since before he got trapped here.  _ Real sleep. _ Wow. What a blessed relief.

When he finally wakes, Evan is still passed out on his left side, but Philip and Max are gone, and, Jake is mortified to discover, so are his wet clothes. They haven’t gone far, though, thank goodness. Philip’s lit a fire out in the clearing to dry them over, bless his soul, and it’s not much longer until Jake is wearing them again. There’s no sign of Max, but when Jake asks after him, Philip points towards the woods. Oh. He must have gone to a trial, then. 

It’s a good while until Evan comes around, though, and it doesn’t surprise Jake that he’d sleep for so long now that there’s a proper place for him to rest, given how permanently exhausted he seems to be. Maybe it won’t be so bad for him, now. 

He doesn’t stick around for long - there’s always a trial to be seen to, after all - and although he doesn’t reply verbally to Jake’s greeting, he does make a point of roughing up Jake’s hair in passing on his way towards the woods. 

Jake is far happier about it than he should be, and although he manages not to laugh at the time, he can’t help himself when Philip comes over and enthusiastically does the same with both hands a moment later.

Jesus, isn’t it nice to feel wanted for a change. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [with fists pounding rhythmically on the table]
> 
> GRANDMA SWAMP! GRANDMA SWAMP! GRANDMA SWAMP!

Holy hell, it’s perfectly wondrous what a little regular sleep can do for you. Shit, Jake can’t remember the last time he felt energetic enough to run without having to be under threat of dismemberment or death to do it, never mind the last time he felt energetic enough to play - god, he hasn’t really _played_ since he was a little kid, even, before The Studying began - but here he is, running, and playing.

Evan’s a good sport. He likely hadn’t been expecting Jake to react to having his hair ruffled by grabbing his arm and trying to wrestle him, but he’s going along with it regardless, albeit much more gently than he would do if he were playing with Max, and it’s the best time Jake’s had playing with anybody in a good, long while. He can growl and yell and fight as hard as he likes, knowing full well that he’s wholly incapable of doing Evan any harm, and although Evan will knock him about or swing him around or take a little mock jab at him sometimes, it’s all in good fun. Before too long, Evan’s wearing him like a collar, completely unhindered by the weight of a not-quite-grown-adult on his back, and although the sudden sensation of Evan’s hand closing around his ankle is scary for a moment, it _is_ only for a moment.

He’s still being dangled upside-down by the aforementioned ankle and laughed at when Max returns from his trial.

This would be all fine and good, except that now Max wants to play too, and he’s not quite as good at pulling his punches as Evan is. He knows that Jake is small and fragile compared to himself and his fellow Killers, that he shouldn’t play with Jake too roughly, but at the same time, he’s _excited,_ and excitement, for Max, invariably blows everything else right out of the water. Before he can charge in and jump on anybody, though, Philip appears, right on time, as ever, to catch him by the arm and rein him in.

And just like that, the disaster is averted. Jake brushes himself off after being dropped and subsequently picked up and turned upright again, and ducks out of the way with Philip to let Max and Evan beat each other senseless in peace. He’s worn out and short of breath, but it feels _good,_ not like what he’s used to at all, and it comes with an unfamiliar but not unwelcome sense of contentment as he hops backwards into the shack window frame to sit there. Philip gives his hair an affectionate tousle, and he doesn’t even try to suppress the chuckle that comes bubbling out of him.

“I’m okay, man. I’m fine.”

That’s all that Philip wants to know, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. Jake’s grown fairly astute at reading him, but really, that’s all that Philip ever wants to know, that everyone’s happy and in one piece. Meanwhile, at the other end of the clearing, Max makes a spirited effort to tackle Evan to the ground, and promptly winds up there himself with a hefty thud when Evan pushes back twice as hard.

It occurs to Jake, briefly, that he ought to be more afraid of these people, but things have changed too much, haven’t they?

Then again, maybe that’s what he ought to be afraid of. After all, this isn’t going to last forever, is it. It can’t, and when things inevitably go back to the way they were, he’s going to wish that none of this had ever happened.

Things have changed too much.

Before he can dwell on the matter too deeply, however, Philip gently taps him on the shoulder to get his attention. Once more, a path has appeared amongst the trees, and it would appear that they’re all expected to go somewhere. All of the games stop, immediately, and there’s a brief pause while everyone picks themselves up and gathers together before they head out. It doesn’t matter where they’re going. It never does. They just have to _go,_ and that’s all there is to it.

There’s still something deeply odd about walking with his present company, Jake finds, as they travel. They’re all so much taller than him that being amongst them like this feels almost like some weird extension of the woods themselves, and the habit they’ve developed of keeping Jake in the middle of their little group as they move doesn’t help.

Not that he’ll complain about it, of course; he’d much rather have them there than not, considering what might be lurking out here, and the thought of it is sufficiently distracting that he’s caught fully by surprise when his next step sees his foot sinking significantly further into the ground than he’d been expecting and shortly getting stuck there.

There’s no such trouble for Evan, Max or Philip - their legs are long enough that the sudden appearance of the mud doesn’t hinder them at all - but they soon notice when Jake fails to remain inside of their little protective circle and falls behind.

“Looks like we’re goin’ to see Lisa, then,” Evan remarks, matter-of-factly, as he watches Philip pull Jake free and usher him back to safety. “Max,” he says, turning, “Are your boots laced up properly?”

Max nods eagerly, already getting excited now that he knows where they’re headed.

“Mhm!”

“They fucking better be,” Evan growls. “If you lose ‘em in that fuckin’ swamp again, you’re findin’ ‘em yourself.”

The swamp, however, is the least of Jake’s worries. Getting there is going to be the issue for him; the swamp itself is mostly just shallow, muddy water, but this ankle-deep sludge is more than he can easily negotiate, and just in wading through it to catch up to Evan and Max, even with Philip’s help, he’s already keenly aware that he won’t be able to keep up with them.

The thought of it doesn’t thrill him.

Philip seems equally unenthused about the idea of letting Jake fend for himself in a place where he can’t move quickly enough to flee from a potential threat, and, after patiently pulling him out of the mud for the third time, he turns to look imploringly at Evan, who, as ever, makes little effort to argue with him.

“Alright, alright,” he sighs, wearily. “Get him, then. Don’t dawdle.”

Evidently, Evan understands Philip far more clearly than Jake does, and he’s briefly left wondering what Evan means by “get him”, but only until Philip grabs him by the arm and lifts him, slinging him onto his back. It’s not the same as being tossed over his shoulder, but still unnervingly similar, so much so that his reaction in grabbing Philip’s cloak and hanging onto him is quite delayed; if it wasn’t for Philip quickly putting an arm behind his back to catch him, he would have wound up right back in the mud again.

He mumbles an apology as Philip jostles him a few times, trying to get him into a higher position on his back, and does his best to get a good grip on Philip’s shoulders. As grateful as Jake might be for the help, it’s still deeply unsettling to be grabbed like that when he isn’t expecting it, and he takes a few breaths to soothe himself as he slips his arms around Philip’s neck.

Sensing Jake’s unease, Philip turns his head, just enough to give him a nudge.

“I’m okay.” Jake offers him a smile that comes out looking just a bit more feeble than he’d intended it to be. “It’s fine, man. I’m okay.”

“Right. Well, then.” Evan unfolds his arms. “Are we sorted?”

Philip nods.

“Yeah,” Jake replies, doing his best to banish the tremble from his voice. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“... So we can go now.” Max, bless him, is trying very hard to be patient. “Right?”

“Yes, Max.” Evan might be trying almost as hard, though. “We can go now. Come on.”

The going is much easier now that Jake is out of the mud, but at the same time, with Evan out in front and Max sticking close by him, Philip is left bringing up the rear, and Jake feels awfully exposed, clinging to his back like this. He can’t help but keep looking over his shoulder, but every time he does, there’s nothing to see but the trees, and the shadows between them.

He holds on just a little tighter.

It’s somewhat reassuring, at least, that Philip is keeping an eye out too, and Jake supposes that he ought to place a little more trust in him. After all, he can see in the dark better than anybody; goodness knows Jake’s spent enough time trying and failing to hide from him in the past to have learned that. There’s very little that gets by Philip, and Jake doesn’t doubt that he’ll catch anything that might be lurking in the woods well before anyone else could hope to spot it.

That’s a weird thing to have to think about. It’s been a long while since Jake has had to run from any of these people, and now, here he is, telling himself to _trust_ them, telling himself that they won’t let anything happen to him. Philip is _carrying him on his back,_ for crying out loud. It’s madness.

He doesn’t get much opportunity to dwell on it, however. The quiet snap of a fallen branch being trodden on somewhere away from the path draws Philip’s attention, and although Jake can’t see anything, Philip wastes no time in turning to face their stalker with a snarl. Evan and Max quickly close ranks around him, knowing full well that there’s nothing out here amongst the trees besides themselves - and Myers.

Jake summarily finds himself being lowered to the ground, once again safely in the middle of the group. The mud isn’t such a big deal now, he realises. Evan’s here. He won’t have to run from anything.

Although he can’t see Myers himself, Evan must know that Philip can, and turns to follow his suddenly intense, unblinking gaze as he straightens himself up.

“Come on out.” He’s not shouting, but Evan still manages to be loud and and explicitly threatening. “We know you’re there. Show yourself before I come over and drag you out.”

With his cover blown, and the element of surprise with it, Myers does as he’s bid. That he’d resort to such ambush tactics is telling: He knows, evidently, that he can’t hope to simply walk past his fellow Killers and take what he wants, but he isn’t willing to give up, either, and if he’s made his way all the way out here, he’s likely been trailing them for a while, waiting for an advantageous moment to strike. Like any ambush predator, though, he knows better than to persist when the game is up, purposefully making his way out of the shadows and into the relative visibility of the ever-present moonlight.

Evan glares down at him as he does it. There’s only a few inches between them in terms of height, Jake can see now, but Myers can’t boast anything remotely approaching Evan’s massive bulk. It’d be a stretch to say that Evan dwarfs him, but not by much. Everyone winds up looking small when they’re standing in Evan’s shadow.

But, despite it all, Myers is still here to do murders. Or maybe there’s something else to it, Jake can’t tell, but, in any case, he’s not content to simply leave this time, and Jake can only hang back, between Max and Philip, as he stalks around, away from the trees, to stand defiantly in Evan’s path. The decision seems, to Jake, to be intensely misguided, but then again, Evan has never actually _done_ anything to Myers, has he? At least, not that Jake has ever seen. Until now, Evan’s only ever had to _be there_ to give Myers reason enough to turn around and leave.

On this occasion, however, it would appear that Myers has other ideas. Perhaps Evan’s approach of... _“tolerant non-violence”_ has given him the impression that he can afford to push his luck.

Being less than impressed at Myers’ attempt to stare him down, Evan draws himself up a little further, giving a low grunt as he puffs out his chest a little more.

“Good,” he growls, staring right back. “Now, piss off.”

When Myers doesn’t budge, he leans forwards, ever so slightly.

“I said -” That already terrible growl grows distinctly deeper and more menacing. “- _Piss off.”_  

Myers does not ‘piss off’. Rather, instead, he pauses for a moment, and then takes precisely three very calculated steps towards Evan, stopping just barely a foot away from him, his dead-eyed gaze unwavering.

It’s a direct challenge that Evan does not appreciate, and he voices his displeasure in the most unambiguous way possible.

His clenched fist makes abrupt, crushing contact with the centre of Myer’s face, with enough force to knock him clean off his feet and send him crashing into the mud with a thick, heavy splash.

“Yeah!” Max cheers. “Fuck him up, Evan!”

Evan ignores him.

“Now then,” he rumbles, through gritted teeth, “Are you gonna piss off, or not?”

Once more, Myers appears to briefly consider his odds, and, not fancying his chances, shortly decides that yes, yes, he is, and hurriedly picks himself up out of the dirt, not even pausing to brush himself off before beating a hasty retreat back into the cover of the woods. Evan huffs, watching him leave.

“... Does…” Jake barely manages to find his voice. “... Does he normally cause this much trouble for you guys?”

Philip shakes his head and, in a very slow, deliberate gesture, taps the middle of Jake’s chest with his index finger.

_No. It’s you._

It’s not an aggressive or in any way accusing gesture, mind you, merely a simple statement of fact, but, nonetheless, it lays a distinct weight squarely in Jake’s heart: guilt. Guilt, but not of the kind he’s been fighting to chase away all this time, the guilt that rears its ugly head every time he thinks of his fellow Survivors. This is a different kind of guilt, new and unfamiliar and deeply, gravely uncomfortable.

Jake frowns, hanging his head.

“Man. _I’m_ causing trouble for you guys, aren’t I.”

“Nah.” Evan, on the contrary, sounds patently delighted with himself as he stands there and rubs his knuckles. “I’ll take any excuse to smack that prick in the face. That was fuckin’ fantastic, I hope he comes back.”

“Me too!” Max is openly laughing, now. “You’ll beat the shit outta that sum’bitch next time, right!?”

“Heh, too fuckin’ right I will. Come on, let’s get us goin’.”

After a while, the dense mud does give way to the murky water that Jake is used to, and he’s finally able to keep up with the others without having to be carried. It’s not long after that that the trees part, and there, amidst the reeds and waterlogged debris, stands the eternally grounded Pale Rose. Jake can’t pretend to be happy to see it, but Max, on the other hand, only has to catch the barest glimpse of it through the heavy fog to set off sprinting into the swamp towards it, grinning and hiccup-laughing all the way.

“Max!” Evan bellows after him. “Max! For fucks sake, come back here!”

His voice lowers to a reluctant grumble as Philip’s hand softly comes to rest on his arm. There’s no need to worry about Max here, and Jake soon learns why.

“Ohh, who’s that?” Despite sounding like the physical embodiment of a particularly devoted lifetime smoking habit, her voice is bright and playful. “Is that my Maxie I hear? Has my Maxie come to see me?”

“Hi, Lisa!” Max is so excited to see her that he forgets altogether about the ramp up to the steamboat’s deck, instead running over to meet her where she’s standing at the railings to the side of it, almost tall enough to come face to face with her there. “Evan punched Myers inna face!”

“Oh, did he?” She’s chuckling already, peering down at him. “Did he, now?”

“Yeah! It was great!”

So, this is Lisa, then. Not the Hag. _Lisa._

While Max is eagerly telling her all of the clearing’s recent news, Evan, Philip and Jake make their way over at a much more leisurely pace, and, as they go, Evan taps Jake on the shoulder.

“Oi. Man-Cub.”

“Yeah?” Jake looks up at him, and immediately stumbles in the water for having done it. “Wh, what’s up?”

“Listen,” Evan tells him, in a lowered tone, “Lisa is _very nice,_ you needn’t be afraid of her, but there’s some rules you need to follow, alright?”

“Okay.”

“First of all, I don’t think she will, but if she offers you anything to eat or drink -”

“- Politely decline?”

“Yes. Exactly. And secondly, when she says it’s time for us to leave, _we leave._ Understood?”

“Okay.”

“Good. Now, mind your manners, Man-Cub. Be decent.”

“Okay. I will.”

“There’s a good lad.”

Jake casts one last glance back towards the woods, half expecting to see Myers lingering at the treeline.

He isn’t there.

By the time Jake, Evan and Philip have made their way over to the steamer, Lisa has managed to herd Max up the ramp and onto the deck, where he’s gleefully kneeling down to receive a hug and a kiss. Well, it’s the last thing Jake would want, but to each their own, he supposes. He can’t really say that he’s shocked by it, given everything he’s already seen here.

In the end, it’s Evan who winds up surprising him.

He’s a little taller than Max, just tall enough that he can easily rest his elbow on the deck while he’s stood on the ground beside the steamer and stand there, leaning, looking up at Lisa like some grinning, saw-toothed Romeo when she shuffles over to the railing to meet him there.

“Lisa.” Evan’s voice is a deep, sonorous purr as he says her name, his free hand coming to rest on his hip as he postures in front of her. “How are you, my dear? My love, my beauty, light of my life?”

“Well!” Lisa’s claws demurely cover mouth, and the hoarse cackle that comes out of it. “You’re feeling full of yourself this night, aren’t you.”

Max is already giggling at them. Philip, though, just rolls his eyes, and gently guides Jake up the ramp and onto the steamer’s deck.

“You’ve been getting more rest, I take it,” Lisa remarks, still chortling. “Like I’ve been telling you all this time.”

“Oh, come now, my rose.” Evan shifts his weight to bring his face just a little closer to hers. “Am I not always this charming? But, uh.” He glances over his shoulder briefly, and chuckles. “I have been getting some extra help in that department, yes.”

“Oh, that’s right, isn’t it!” At that, Lisa perks up, looking around. “Where’s this Man-Cub I’ve been hearing all about, hm? You must have brought him with you, show me! Show me!”

Jake winces, fearfully torn between hiding behind Philip and showing some basic manners. The decision is made for him in the end, though; Max eagerly points him out, and it’s all he can do to smile and wave, and hope that he doesn’t look too sheepish in doing it.

“Ah, so it’s you, then, is it?” She sounds pleasantly surprised. Jake thinks she’s smiling as she approaches him, but he can’t really tell. “It’s a royal mess that you’d wind up here, isn’t it. What a shame.”

He wants to reply, he really does, but christ, she’s started stroking his hair, and he can barely bring himself to breathe for the number of times that those same godawful talons of hers have carved open his back when he’s fled, or pierced his belly when he’s failed. As many times as Jake reminds himself that he doesn’t have to be scared of Lisa anymore, that Evan, Philip and Max wouldn’t let anything happen to him, he just can’t drown out the fear, can’t make his body perform in spite of it.

The deck’s wooden boards creak under Evan’s weight as he steps off the ramp.

“Lisa.” His tone has changed again, become more serious. “You mustn’t do that. Look, he’s afraid of you. You’re gonna frighten the life out of him.”

“Oh!” At Evan’s gentle but firm mention, Lisa draws her hand away immediately. “Oh, I am sorry! Maxie’s been telling me all about you and all the fun you’ve been having; I didn’t even think about it.”

Jake tries with all his might to say that it’s okay, but the words just won’t come out, and he’s enormously grateful that Evan is there to speak up for him instead.

“He’ll be alright, don’t worry. Just give him a bit to settle, you’ll see. He’s good. Decent.”

“Alright, then. I’m sorry, dear,” she tells Jake, again. “I’ll let you be for now. Come on, Maxie. Let’s get the table out, shall we?”

“Okay!”

Jake does his best to make his sigh of relief at Lisa hobbling away from him with Max in tow as quiet as possible, before looking up at Evan to offer him a grateful smile. It is, as ever, impossible to read Evan’s expression, but he gives a nod of acknowledgement in return, and then all there is to do is let Lisa make arrangements for her guests, with Max’s well-meaning but clumsy help, of course. To her credit, Lisa is very patient with him. Jake hears her tell him how good he is for helping her no fewer than a half a dozen times, and Max is delighted to hear it, every single time.

The “table” turns out to be a battered wood panel, maybe the lid or the side of a crate, balanced on top of an upright barrel. The whole arrangement is summarily put together on the Rose’s front deck, where there’s room for a few boxes to be placed around it to serve as seating. Evan did try to help Lisa in putting it all out as well, but she wouldn’t let him, and he politely gave up after having the back of his thigh swatted for the second time. Philip, apparently, knew better, and now the two of them are standing out of the way while Lisa and Max - well, mostly Lisa, really - organise things, and Jake is standing there with them.

And then that’s it, and they’re all sat around the table, talking, having conversations. It’s bizarrely civilised.

Well. Evan and Lisa are talking and having conversations, for the most part. Philip rarely has anything to say at the best of times, and Max is wise enough not to try to talk over Evan. Jake, sat between Evan and Philip, is still trying to calm himself enough to find his voice, but it’s not so bad just to listen for a while, anyway.

“So, then, my sweet, resplendent flower. How are you? How have you been?”

“Evan, goodness gracious. I am _very_ well, thank you. And you?”

“Getting there, getting there. All the better for seeing you, my love.”

The resemblance of it all to any other visit to see a relative or friend of the family is utterly limitless in its oddity. It’s all smiles and laughs and catching up; one gets the impression that they aren’t allowed to visit Lisa very often, and there’s an awful lot of news for her to be brought up to date on, especially with Jake having turned up amongst them, too. There’s plenty to talk about, and throughout it all, Evan is perpetually dropping the most hackneyed compliments and one-liners, leaning in to listen when Lisa is talking, making eyes at her - or, at least, that’s what Jake assumes he’s doing. As always, the mask makes it difficult to know for sure.

To begin with, Jake can’t help but be made a little uncomfortable by it, and not only because Lisa is quite possibly the last person in this world or any other that he could imagine anybody wanting to flirt with. It smacks of the kind of shit that the popular guys at school would do to the ugly girls, pretending to come onto them, asking them out for laughs, and, as he hears Evan remark, in that same theatrically heavy, dulcet purr that he always seems to lay on to say such things, upon Lisa’s exceptional ladylike refinement, it feels like the cruellest kind of prank. She’s a lonely old woman, for fuck’s sake. It’s not fair.

After a while of watching and listening, though, of getting to know Lisa and learning to read her in the same way he’s learned to read Evan, Max and Philip, Jake realises something.

_She’s in on this joke._

Every time Evan rests his chin on his hands and sighs as she speaks, or places his palm over his heart just so to wax lyrical about how much he’s missed her, or calls her by some superbly flattersome and grandiloquent pet name, Lisa makes just as much of a hammy, operatic act of being flirted with. It’s difficult to see, given that she’s such a _mess,_ for want of a better word, but the longer Jake looks, the more familiar he becomes with her, the more often he notices her poised hands, her delicately mannered posture; she even bats her eyelids at Evan a few times, or what’s left of them, anyway. She’s every bit as much a game participant in this running gag as Evan is, and they’re amusing each other enormously with it.

At the same time, though, Philip might be the most bored Jake’s ever seen him. He’s sitting there very politely, hands in his lap, elbows off the table, but Jake keeps seeing his gaze drift around as he searches the landscape away from the table for some kind of inspiration, some distraction. It would appear that this is far from the first time he’s had to sit through this schmaltzy hogwash, and it’s not hard to imagine that it might get old after a while. There’s no telling how many times Philip’s had to play the third wheel while Evan and Lisa go on with their baloney.

Max, on the other hand, is mightily entertained. Then again, if Max finds something funny once, then he’ll tend to keep finding it funny no matter how often he sees it. Max is blessedly easy to please sometimes.

Still, in the end, the conversation does have to take a more serious turn, and the japes eventually have to stop. Philip’s shoulders sag with barely-visible relief as the flowery drivel finally winds down, and sensible dialogue wins out.

“I don’t suppose you’ve talked to that Sally girl lately, have you, Evan?”

“I don’t talk to her at all, Lisa. She’s not worth talking to. All she does whenever she drops in is hurl abuse at Max, for crying out loud. Why on earth would I talk to her?”

“She’s troubled.”

“We’re _all_ troubled, Lisa.”

“But you’ve still got your manners, Evan. Nobody ends up like her without being troubled.”

“Well, you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not more tolerant of her.”

“She told me to die in a hole.”

Everyone turns to look at Max when he mumbles that, and straight away, Lisa is reaching for his hand to comfort him.

“Oh, Maxie. Don’t listen. You’re a good boy. Don’t listen to her.”

“When did this happen?” Evan asks, leaning towards him. “Why is this the first I’m hearin’ of it?”

“Well, you weren’t there,” Max explains. “See, we were diggin’ that hole to put the shelter in, an’ you weren’t there. It don’t matter though,” he adds, brightening up. “She didn’t get to say a whole lot else, on account’a the Man-Cub yelled at her real good ‘n’ made her go away!”

“Did he, now?” Evan’s looking at Jake, then, with much interest. “Is that the case?”

“Yeah!” exclaims Max, laughing. “He yelled at her so much, she didn’t get to say _shit!_ It was so good!”

“Oi. Don’t swear in front of Lisa.”

“Oh. Oh, uh. Sorry, Lisa.”

“It’s alright, dear. Don’t do it again.”

“Okay.”

“Is this true, Man-Cub?” asks Evan, turning his attention back to Jake.

Jake nods.

“She… w, we were having a good time,” he stammers, speaking up as best he can. “I didn’t want her to ruin it for us.”

“You f-” Evan hastily stifles himself. “-f, fool!” There we go. “She could’ve killed you!”

“Come on, man!” Jake protests, finding it much easier to talk when it’s just Evan he’s looking at. “I couldn’t just let her say that stuff!”

“You are a bloody fool,” says Evan, again, with a weary sigh.

“He sounds more like a hero to me,” remarks Lisa, warmly. “I tell you, Evan MacMillan,” she says, wagging a claw like a steak knife at him, “You’ve been blessed with this Man-Cub of yours. You’d better be taking care of him.”

“Yeah, well.” Evan shifts where he sits, and casts Jake another of those difficult-to-read glances. “We’re doing our best, aren’t we, Philip.”

Philip nods happily. They _are_ doing their best.

“I mean it!” The claw-waving intensifies. “You’re lucky you got this one and not that skinny white boy! I’ve seen what all of those youngsters are like, and mark my words, he’d have run twenty miles and hid in a ditch sooner than stick his neck out for poor Maxie!”

_Well._ Jake’s opinion of Lisa is suddenly _vastly_ improved. She’s got Dwight pegged to a tee.

“Alright, alright!” Evan chuckles, raising his hands in surrender. “I get it, I get it. We’re lucky to have him, I agree.”

“And how, may I ask,” says Lisa, conversationally, as she sets her unsettlingly withered eyes on Jake, “Did we come to have you, dear? If you don’t mind telling about it.”

“Yeah, actually.” Evan folds his arms, tilting his head quizzically at Jake. “Where _did_ you come from? Seems a little too fortunate to have been intentional.”

“Well, I, uh.” Jake fights the urge to squirm in his seat. “I don’t know, to be honest. I just went for a walk because people were getting kinda…”

He hesitates, trying to think of an alternative word for “bitchy”.

“... They were getting kinda _rude_ with each other,” he finally goes on. “I got sick of it, so I went into the woods, thinking they’d’ve worked things out by the time I got back.”

“So…” Max’s brow creases with thought. “... You got here on accident?”

“Mhm.” Jake nods. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Interesting.” There’s a creak as Evan leans back a little on his seat. “Wander off like that a lot, do you, Man-Cub?”

“It’s the only way to catch a break from stuff,” replies Jake, shrugging. “It’s always been okay to do that before. You just keep walking and you wind up back where you started after a while.”

“But you hang around with us,” Max points out, cocking his head. “But I guess that’s ‘cause Myers is out there, huh.”

“Well, it’s not _just_ that,” Jake admits. “I mean, you guys, you’re…”

He looks around at them, and feels, not for the first nor last time, that it would seem odd to call them “Killers”. Evan, Philip, Max and Lisa; they’re _people_ now, and decent people, at that.

The thought of what he’s about to say ties awkward knots in his guts, but it’s the truth.

“... You’re good company, y’know? You’re decent. I don’t mind hanging around with you.”

It’s hardly as if he can pretend otherwise, is it.

“And those friends of yours?” Lisa inquires. “Are they not?”

“Well…” Now Jake really does squirm, trying not to look anyone in the eye. He shouldn’t be telling them anything, should he? “... Not… not exactly. Everyone’s always arguing and tearing into each other. It gets really tiring.”

“I knew it!” announces Lisa, giving the table a loud tap. “I knew it! I see it all, you know! All of you bickering with each other and trying to lay blame for every little thing, I see it all!”

The others are nodding in solemn agreement. They’ve _all_ seen it.

“And that white boy,” Lisa goes on, furious on Jake’s behalf, “He thinks he rules the roost, doesn’t he! He’s always telling people where to go and what to do!”

“He’s junior management if I’ve ever seen it,” grumbles Evan, disapproval hanging heavily in his voice. “Bloody busybody. I doubt if he’s got many friends.”

It’s true. Nobody likes Dwight.

“And the girls are just as bad, aren’t they! Just as vicious to each other as they are to us!”

“I always thought you’d be nice to each other like we are,” says Max, a little sadly. “But if e’rryone keeps doin’ that stuff after y’all go home…” He frowns. “... I’d hide in the woods all the time, too.”

Philip pats Jake on the shoulder, shaking his head.

“Well,” sighs Evan, resignedly, “They’re young, aren’t they. Perhaps they don’t know any better.”

“You’d think they’d learn, though, wouldn’t you?” Lisa remarks. “And there’s some grown ones amongst them now, too. They _should_ know better. It can’t be pleasant, living like that.”

“It’s not,” Jake confesses. “But I mean, the, the trials are… Jesus, you guys know what they’re like. Everyone’s scared and messed up; I guess we all just take it out on each other.”

“It’s not like him upstairs gives you many other options, I suppose,” mutters Evan. “I expect you’re left to make your own entertainment just as much as we are.”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” Evan gives a low, dissatisfied grunt. “Terrible.”

Again, the others around the table wordlessly nod their heads, although Jake is still sitting with his own head down, looking pointedly at his hands, clasped loosely on the table in front of him. This is so fucked up. He shouldn’t be talking to them about this stuff, he really shouldn’t. Talking about trials, even! They’re siding with him, going on about it as if it’s not their fault, as if they’re not the reason that the Entity’s trials are so goddamned awful and mind-breaking.

But, then again, it’s _not_ their fault, is it. It’s like Evan’s said before, you can’t _not_ do the work. You can’t argue. There’s no alternative, not for them, not for the Survivors, not for anybody.

When he thinks about it, Jake supposes that it’s all they can really do to commiserate on the situation together, but everything about this conversation feels wrong, for so many reasons, and before too long, the weight of that ever-creeping guilt under his sternum becomes too great.

“... Can we talk about something else?” he asks, quietly, after a little while. “Please?”

Evan is quick to enforce Jake’s request for him.

“‘Course we can, my lad.”

With that, and the now-familiar sensation of Philip’s hand settling gently on his back, nothing more is said on the matter. Still, Jake reflects, the same request would never fly back at the campfire. You can’t ask for anyone to do anything for you back there without some stupid, petty backlash happening; everyone’s too busy keeping score and judging each other to just shut up and be decent. Meanwhile, Jake hasn’t even done anything for these guys recently, but they still seem to think that he deserves to be taken care of.  

“So!” Lisa sits up a little, quickly changing the subject. “Why don’t you all tell me about this shelter Maxie’s been talking about?”

“It’s the best!” chimes Max, his face lighting up at the welcome switch. “It was the Man-Cub’s idea!”

“It’s only a simple thing as well,” remarks Evan, still sounding impressed by it. “It’s just a few bits of corrugated iron, but it’s bloody good. Nice and sturdy.”

“An’ it’s good to sleep in,” adds Max. “You ever build one’a those before, Man-Cub?”

“Me?” Jake’s sitting up, then, too. “Uh, no. Just something I read about once.”

“Oh? So it’s a -” Evan gestures vaguely, not troubling himself to completely unfold his arms as he does so. “- It’s a proper _thing,_ then, is it?”

“Mhm, yeah, it’s an Anderson shelter. It’s a bomb shelter they gave folks to build in their backyards in the war.”

“Huh?” Max squints. “What’s the war?”

Immediately, the discussion grinds to an abrupt halt.

“Oh, uh.” Evan is the first to pick it up again. “Don’t worry about it, Maxie. You don’t need to know about that. Forget about it.”

“Why, though?”

“I said, don’t worry about it.”

“But -”

“Maxie, shall we go and catch a frog? How about that?”

Lisa’s flawless interjection grabs Max’s attention instantly.

“Yeah!”

“Come on, then.” She’s getting up from the table, then, all smiles. “Let’s you, me and Philip go and catch a frog so that Evan can have a rest.”

It works like a charm, and Max is cheerfully following after her, having forgotten all about any curiosity he might have had for wars or bombs or Anderson shelters. As he’s getting up to follow too, Philip lightly touches Jake’s arm, head tilting, and it takes Jake a moment to realise that he’s being asked a question.

“Huh? O, oh. No, no man, that’s okay. You guys go and play. I think I need a rest, too.”

“Alright, then.” Lisa’s already somewhat unnerving grin grows just a little wider, and a little weirder. “Come along, then, Maxie. I’m sure we’ll find a frog if we look _really, really hard,_ won’t we.”

“Yeah! We’ll catch one this time for sure!”

“Lisa.”

At Evan’s mention of her name, Lisa pauses to look at him, and he, leaning across the table towards her, rests his chin gracefully on his hand once more.

“When are we gonna get married, Lisa?”

She wasn’t expecting that, evidently, and the noise that comes out of her is far more like a giggle than she was likely intending; she struggles to quiet herself, and half-heartedly tells Evan to stop before continuing to usher Max and Philip across the deck.

A deep, worn-out chuckle rises softly out of Evan’s great, broad chest as he watches the three march themselves down the ramp, off the steamer and into the swamp.

“Are…” Jake peers at them, bewildered, as they go. “... Are there actually frogs out here?”

At the question, Evan’s chuckle rises into a snort.

“No,” he laughs, shaking his head. “Not _one._ I think that’s just what him upstairs thinks a swamp sounds like. I don’t suppose it matters, though,” he says. “I’m fairly certain Max doesn’t even know what he’s looking for. It’s just a bit of fun for him, isn’t it.”

“He doesn’t… he doesn’t know what a frog is?”

“No.”

“Man. He… there’s a lot of stuff he doesn’t know about, isn’t there.”

“Yeah, well.” The lighthearted tone of Evan’s voice slowly begins to dwindle. “There’s reasons for that, aren’t there. I s’pose it couldn’t hurt to tell you now. You spend enough time helpin’ out with him.”

“R, really? You don’t mind?”

“Nah. It’s nothin’ nice, though. I mean, we wouldn’t have known ourselves, except he came back from a trial one time and started actin’ out of sorts.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well, he didn’t want to go back and do more. Started sayin’ he hated the work and didn’t wanna do it.”

“Man. That _is_ weird.”

“Yeah, too fuckin’ right it is.”

He’d just gone and sat himself down in the shack, Evan explains, and became very determined to remain there for as long as possible. In the end, between them, Evan and Philip managed to get it out of him that a Survivor he’d caught had stabbed him in the shoulder with something, and it’d given him a hefty spook. Nobody had done that to him before. He hadn’t been expecting it.

“He’s not fantastic with sudden changes like that,” says Evan. “And, y’know, he wouldn’t be the only one who wasn’t impressed that you and your lot had got it into your heads to start stabbin’ people. None of us liked it much, but Maxie, well. He’s not good at coping with unexpected things at the best of times.”

But they don’t have a choice. Whether they like it or not, they’ve got to keep going out and doing the work, and Evan told Max as much. Max didn’t want to hear it.

“Why!?” he’d demanded, hugging his knees. “Why’s I gotta go and do the work!? I hate it!”

With Philip being poorly suited to explaining anything to anyone, Evan had been left to try to make Max understand by himself, and, in his frustration, he’d been a little too honest.

“You have to, Max! It’s not fucking optional!”

“Why!?”

“Because that’s what we’re here for, for fucks sake! I don’t see a way out of these fucking woods, do you!?”

It was only when the look of utter horror had dawned on Max’s face after he’d said it that he realised that he might have made a mistake, but the gravity of that mistake shortly became very, very clear indeed.

“Max gets fussy sometimes,” he tells Jake, now resting his elbows heavily on the table. “He gets fussy, and sometimes there are tantrums. That’s fair enough. We expect that. He can’t help it. But this, this was just a fucking _calamity,_ I’ve never known anything like it. He just started _howling,_ he was, christ, he…”

Evan sighs, shaking his head.

“... Something was really, properly wrong. That’s all we could figure out, Philip and I. Something was _wrong._ And we tried to settle him and ask him what it was, y’know, I tried to tell him that we’d got the same, that someone’d shanked us in the back as well and that we were just gonna have to get used to it, that it wasn’t that bad, but he was just sobbing and howling, we weren’t gettin’ any sense of out him, and… Fucking hell, it was just awful. Bless Philip, though, bless his fucking heart, he did keep tryin’. He got us there in the end.”

It hadn’t been much, but it was better than nothing.

_“I thought I got out.”_

“That’s all we could get out of him for a good fuckin’ while, _‘I thought I got out! I thought I got out!’_ Took us a fuckin’ age to get him to explain anything, but when he did start talkin’ about it, fuck me, I just.”

He pushes his fingertips under the bottom of his mask, slipping his hands underneath, and there’s the brief, muted sound of rough palms against skin as he rubs his face. Jake still doesn’t manage to catch a glimpse of him, even as he withdraws them again.

“You mustn’t tell anyone about this,” he tells Jake, sternly, sitting up. “You mustn’t.”

“I won’t, I won’t. I swear, I won’t tell anyone.”

“... Alright, well. Maxie told us… he said…”

It takes Evan a while to find the right words, to carry on explaining. Whatever is coming must bother him a lot; Jake’s never seen him at such a loss for words before, never seen him so reluctant to say something.

“... He said,” he goes on, eventually, gesturing with rigid hands, his voice in a strained, strung-out hush, “That there was a room. There was a room, and he had lived in this room, this _one fucking room,_ for as long as he could remember. He was never allowed to leave it. Someone, I assume his parents, fed him through a fucking hole in the wall, and they kept him there. Nobody took care of him, nobody talked to him, nobody even fucking _looked_ at him, and that was his whole fucking world, from the day he was born. He didn’t know why, or how, that’s just how it was. That’s how Maxie came up. Shut away in a little box, day after day after day.”

There’s another long, heavy pause as Evan looks out over the swamp, where Max is merrily running about in the mud with Lisa and Philip, having a whale of a time and making a glorious mess of himself.

“... But... he _did_ get out, eventually. I don’t know how. He didn’t say, and I didn’t want to ask. He wasn’t supposed to get out, but he did, and he just ran amok, didn’t he, because what else would he fucking do? And, I suppose, at some point, he must’ve got his hands on that fucking chainsaw and just _gone to town_ on everyone and everything out there, and that’s…”

Evan’s gaze drifts slowly back down to the table.

“... That’s what got him upstairs interested in him, I expect. So now he’s here, with us. Still shut away, still trapped. Just, in a slightly bigger box.”

“... Holy shit, dude.”

“Yeah. He thought he’d managed to escape, but… obviously not.”

It was all Evan could do, after hearing all of that, to reach for Max and hug him, and, as he recounts the sorry tale to Jake, he recalls how Max’s whole body had stiffened with fear under his arms. 

“But of course, nobody had ever held him before, had they,” he says, sadly. “It took him a minute to realise that something  _ nice  _ was happening, you know? But when he did, christ, he hung onto me like his fuckin’ life depended on it, and me and Philip, we… He’s ours, now. We look after him.” 

Suddenly, an awful lot of things about Max make sense. More than just his conspicuous lack of knowledge about commonplace, everyday things, but the stunted, childlike mentality, the janky gait, his reliance on Evan and Philip for nearly everything - it all makes horrible, repulsive sense, and Jake feels his stomach turn with a potent mix of grief and disgust.

“It’s fuckin’ shocking,” remarks Evan, somberly, “That this godforsaken place would be an improvement over the hole he came from. We’re lucky he even fucking _talks._ And, we, we do our best, Philip and I, we try’n take care of him, but it shouldn’t’ve fucking happened. He was somebody’s _kid,_ for fucks sake. You take what you’re fucking given when it’s your kid. You don’t get to… to… _shove ‘em back in and ask for your money back_ when they don’t turn out how you wanted, for fucks sake. He didn’t ask to be born like he is. He’s a good lad. He didn’t deserve any of that.”

He gives another deep, burdened sigh.

“It’s not fuckin’ _fair._ Those people, those _bastards,_ I’d wring their fucking necks myself if I could.”

“... Sounds like Max already took care of that, though, huh.”

“Yeah. Yeah, from what I gather. Although I doubt if he knew what he was doing.”

“Yeah.”

The two of them sit together in silence for a few long moments, then, Jake watching Evan as he watches Max playing out in the swamp.

“... Makes you grateful, I suppose,” says Evan, after a while. “Doesn’t it. To have parents who wanted you.”

The words are like a burning, stinging wound that cuts Jake cruelly to his core. It feels deeply petty and selfish to imagine that his own situation with his parents was anything even remotely akin to the kind of abuse poor Max has suffered through, but, at the same time, it does strike far too close to home. Jake just couldn’t see the walls of the little box that he was shut away in, and the moment he decided that he didn’t want to live in it, his parents didn’t want him anymore.

“... I couldn’t tell you,” he mutters, half hoping that Evan won’t hear him.

Now, Evan looks at him.

“What d’you mean, Man-Cub?”

_Well, you’ve done it now, ‘Man-Cub’. You fucking genius._

“Well, I…”

_You shouldn’t have fucking said anything. You attention-seeking shit. How could you._

He swallows.

_You could have just kept your fucking mouth shut, you idiot, but you didn’t. How dare you. He’s going to be disgusted that you’d even try to fucking compare. Go on, tell him. See how well it goes._

“... Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“No.”

“Wh, what?”

“I said ‘no’. What did you mean by that, Man-Cub? Tell me.”

There’s no arguing with Evan MacMillan, Jake knows that much. He doesn’t seem angry, though; rather, it’s that kind of harsh, slightly growly tone that always comes out when he’s concerned and hasn’t the time for any bullshit, when he wants to solve the problem and someone or something is preventing him from getting there. It can sound like anger, or something that might turn into it, but Jake knows that it isn’t. It’s impatience, more than anything. He needn’t fear it, but arguing with it, by the same token, isn’t terribly wise. It’s not an argument he can win.

“... My parents didn’t want me, either,” he reluctantly concedes. “I mean, they did, but I fucked up, I guess, and they changed their minds.”

“Hm.” Evan seems to consider this. “And how’s that, then?”

“It, it’s nothing,” mumbles Jake, turning away from him. “It’s just some stupid shit, they wanted me to study and be a big success like my brother. I should’ve just fucking done it and kept them happy.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No. I fucked up and dropped out of college, and then my dad stopped talking to me, and…”

“And what?”

“... I ran away from home. I had to get out, man. I would’ve killed myself if I’d stayed.”

“They made it that bad for you, did they?”

“Well, my dad did. My mom, she, she tried, I think, but…”

“But it’s not like she stopped him, or anything.”

“No.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

That surprises him enough to get his attention, to make him look Evan in the eye.

“Wh, what?”

“Are you fucking serious?” asks Evan, again. “They made that much of a stink because you had _a different choice of career_ to your fucking brother? They’d stop talking to you and drive you out of the house over _that?_ Really?”

Jake nods weakly.

“Yeah.”

“Jesus fucking christ. That’s appalling. You’re their fucking son.”

“Yeah, when you put it like that, I guess. It was my fault, though. I should’ve just done what they wanted me to do. I mean, I owed them that much for raising me, right?”

“What? No!”

Oh god, Evan’s fired up now. He’s turning, bodily, where he’s sitting, to face Jake properly, leaning in closer, and getting distinctly harsher and growlier as he speaks.

“Listen, Man-Cub,” he rumbles, “My dad, he told me, when I was comin’ up, that I didn’t owe him a fucking thing. He put me here, I didn’t get to choose to be his son, but he chose to have one, and raising me properly was his fucking _job,_ alright? That’s what you do when you decide to become a parent, you raise your fucking child, and you try your damnedest to do right by ‘em, so they can live a good life and don’t regret havin’ been stuck with you. That’s how it’s supposed to fucking work, alright, Man-Cub? Anyone who tells you different is full of shit.”

“Y, you think?”

“I fucking _know,_ Man-Cub.”

“O, okay.”

Satisfied that he’s driven his point home, Evan slowly hefts himself back towards the table, leaving Jake to mull over what he’s said. And, indeed, Jake does mull it over, but the more he thinks about what Evan’s just told him, and a few other things that Evan’s said before, the more curious he finds himself becoming.

“... Evan?”

“Hm?”

“You’ve mentioned your dad a couple of times, haven’t you.”

“Probably, yeah.”

“I guess he was pretty good, huh?”

“My dad was _fucking fantastic,_ thank you very much.”

“Heh, yeah?”

“Oh, yes. A proper gentleman, he was. Made a good role model of himself. Took good care of me, got me educated, saw to it that I never had to want for anything. Startin’ to realise how lucky I was, I must say.”

“... You’re _educated?”_ Jake pauses, realising too late how he must have sounded saying that. “Uh, I mean, like, _highly_ educated?”

“Well yeah, I had to be, if I was gonna help him run his business.”

“And that’s what you wanted to do, huh?”

“All I wanted in the whole world, Man-Cub. Even ended up runnin’ it for him, in the end.”

“Is that what you wanted, too?”

“Well…” Evan’s massive shoulders rise and fall in turn as he crosses his arms, still resting his elbows on the table. “... Maybe under better circumstances, but… not the way it happened, no.”

“... What happened?”

He’s watching Max, Philip and Lisa again, now, or at least, he’s looking in their direction.

“He got sick one winter,” he replies, ruefully. “And he never really recovered from it. I mean, I did my best for him, brought in every cure that money could buy, but he was never the same afterwards. I had to start takin’ care of things for him after that.”

“Man. I’m sorry.”

“Hm. Well. It’s all in the past now, isn’t it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

Out in the swamp, Max trips over his own feet, and lands face-first in the muddy water. For a moment, Evan lifts his head, watching for Max’s reaction, making sure he’s alright, but he soon relaxes again when Max picks himself up laughing. Lisa’s there, brushing him off - a futile act, given just how caked in mud and filth Max is by now - and Philip, too, helping him get upright.

(Philip, by comparison, is astoundingly clean for having been running around in the swamp after Max. He’s a little muddy up to his knees, and that’s about it. Jake can’t figure out how he’s managed it.)

“He’d better let us go by the lake after this,” remarks Evan, idly, no doubt referring to the Entity. “It’s gonna be a fucking nuisance gettin’ Max tidy again.”

“He’s having a good time, though.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is.”

“Evan?”

“Hm?”

“How come Lisa doesn’t stay with you? It seems like it’d help a lot if she did.”

“Ah. Well.” There’s a long, slow intake of breath before Evan answers. “It’s, uh. Y’know how I said we have to leave when she tells us to?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, about that. If, uh. If we stay too long, she’ll, you know, she’ll start looking at us a bit funny, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh.” Jake frowns. “Oh. I see.”

“Yeah. She’s got a fairly good handle on it, she knows when we’ve got to go if there’s to be no trouble, but, yeah. It’s a shame, it really is. Maxie loves her.”

“She looks like she loves him, too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she does. She’s lonely, I know she is, and she’d want us all together if we could be, but…” Evan gives a resigned shrug. “We can’t be, unfortunately.”

“That fucking sucks.”

“Mm.”

“Do you… do you know why she’s like that?”

“No. No, I don’t, and I’m too polite to ask. I don’t know if it were him upstairs who made her like that, or someone else before she got here, but in any case, he left her that way because it’s more convenient for him like that. Just the same as how he’s left Philip with no fucking voice.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Fucking terrible. He’s…” Jake can hear Evan’s jaw clenching. “... I shouldn’t say too much, I suppose,” he grumbles. “Better safe than sorry, eh?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

They really are just the Entity’s toys, aren’t they? It picks them up from wherever it likes, twists them and breaks them into whatever forms it wants, and then dumps them out into this pathetic shadow of the world they came from and wilfully neglects them until it’s time for them to do its bidding. It doesn’t care for any of them, doesn’t make any real effort for them; it only cares for what they can do for it, what they can provide for it. It’s like a particularly shitty exotic pet owner, the kind you always hear horror stories about, where they fail horrendously to fulfill their animal’s most basic, fundamental needs but still insist on keeping said animal in those horrendous, inadequate conditions because they “really love it” and think it’s cool, or whatever.

The Entity shouldn’t be allowed to keep anything, ever. Jake wouldn’t trust the Entity with a fucking goldfish.

Still, coming to that, Jake reflects, it’s interesting to hear that it’s not _malice,_ as such, that the Entity seems to be looking for in its Killers, so much as a simple willingness to kill. They only have to be good at the work, that’s the only requirement. Max might not have a single malicious bone in his whole gangly, awkward body, for fucks sake. He’s just _good at the work._ He’s just _willing to kill,_ even if he doesn’t fully understand what killing actually _is._

Jake doesn’t feel quite so bad about enjoying the Killers’ company, with that being the case. Maybe they’re not that terrible. Maybe they all have stories like poor Maxie’s.

Not that he’s reaching, or anything. Not that he’s desperate to feel at least somewhat at peace for liking them. Because he can’t deny, now, that he does like them. He likes them a lot, in fact; they’re the first real _friends_ he’s had in what feels like an eternity, the first people who have afforded him a decent degree of basic respect and made an effort to look out for him without it counting against him or being weaponised as ammo in an argument later.

“Oi, oi. Here comes trouble.”

The laughter has, at last, returned to Evan’s voice, and, sure enough, there’s Max, trudging back towards the steamer, absolutely covered in mud.

“Look at the state of you!” chuckles Evan, watching him trot up the ramp and onto the deck, followed by Philip and Lisa. “You stay where you are, boy. Don’t go traipsin’ mud all through Lisa’s boat.”

“Oh, he’s fine, Evan.” Lisa’s still smiling as she dutifully herds Max back towards him. “Don’t worry about that.”

“So,” says Jake, almost grinning himself, “Did you catch a frog, buddy?”

Max shakes his head - “Nah.” - but he doesn’t seem too put out. He’s had a good time regardless.

“Oh. Ohh, Maxie.” Evan’s doing his best not to laugh any louder. “Maybe next time, eh, my lad.”

For a heartbeat or two, he and Philip share a brief but knowing glance, just for the few moments it takes Philip to make his way over to check on Jake, and it might genuinely be the happiest group of people Jake has seen together - that he’s been a part of - in a long, long while.

But of course, all good things must eventually come to an end, and it soon becomes clear as to why, exactly, Max has been ushered back to the steamer, and back to Evan.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve got work to be getting on with, haven’t you, Evan.” Lisa is still as bright and mirthful as ever as she’s saying it. “I’d better let you go, hadn’t I.”

“True, true.” Not having to be told twice, Evan heaves himself to his feet. “Right you are, my precious jewel.”

“And don’t leave it so long until you’re here again next,” she adds, in playful reprimand. “It’s quiet here without you all, you know.”

“As quiet and lonely as my poor heart without you, my sweet.”

Ah, the baloney flows anew. Of course it does, and Philip, as eternally patient as he is, makes a point of occupying himself, fussing over Max and Jake both, making sure that they’ve each got both their shoes on and are otherwise all in one piece, as Lisa delicately offers Evan her hand, and Evan, with a very courtly bow - which, ironically, is actually entirely necessary for him to come down low enough to reach it - takes it tenderly in his own, holding it up to the toothy maw of his mask, stopping barely short of kissing it.

“My dear, my love, my beauty, light of my life, I shall yearn ceaselessly for you until next we meet.”

Everyone winds up looking small when they’re standing in Evan’s shadow, it’s true, but Lisa, having been especially “petite” in the first place, makes him look even more monstrous than usual. There’s not a trace of fear or apprehension in her, though, as she stands there and cackles at his comically overblown theatrics.

“You ought to mind yourself, Evan MacMillan,” she tells him, taking her hand back. “I might just start taking you seriously someday.”

“Pfft.” Evan straightens up with a snort. “As if you’d want someone like me.”

It only takes a little while longer for everyone to say their goodbyes, and then they’re off, headed back the way they came, waving to Lisa as they go.

“She seems well,” Evan remarks, once they’re well away from the swamp. “I’m glad she’s alright.”

Philip, having put Jake on his shoulders again, nods in happy agreement.

“I wish we could stay longer,” says Max, looking over his shoulder. “It ain’t fair.”

“No.” Evan glances back down the path behind them, too. “No, it’s not fair, is it.”

“D’you think we’ll get to go to the lake, Evan?”

“Max, for your sake, I fucking hope so.”

“Hee.”

There’s an awful lot for Jake to reflect on, after all of that. As he rests his head lazily against the back of Philip’s neck, he has to wonder how on earth he’s going to make sense of it all. At least, however, he can take a little solace in knowing that the people he’s hanging around with aren’t all the objectively abhorrent monsters he’d always assumed them to be. Or that Max isn’t, anyway. Fucking hell, poor Maxie. It’s a testament to how much Evan and Philip have done for him and how decent they’ve been to him that he’s turned out as friendly and happy as he is; that they’ve managed to teach him how to be _good_ is pretty solid evidence, to Jake’s mind, that they must be pretty good themselves.

Yeah. They’re alright. They’re an alright bunch, and Jake, really, senses that he could do a lot worse than stick with them. The folks back at the campfire could take a page or ten out of the Killers’ book, that’s for damn sure.

Yeah.

They’re. They’re alright.

They’re an alright bunch.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, it would appear that the Entity might not be completely inept after all. The group has indeed, to everyone’s great relief, been directed to the lake, an extra stop on their walk home from the swamp.

Jake’s never seen the lake before, but Philip tells him - or rather, he nods affirmatively when Jake asks him - that they usually wind up here after they’ve been to visit Lisa, and he can see fairly plainly as to why it would be a necessary detour. Whilst Jake and his fellow Survivors generally do their best to keep out of the mud if ever they’re turned out into the swamp, the Killers don’t really get much of a choice in the matter. They have Max, after all, and Max has no concept whatsoever of keeping out of anything. He’s a mess.

The lake itself is a vast and eerie place, a wide, shimmering pool, surrounded by trees, and largely featureless except for the presence of a few sizeable rocks and, bizarrely, a handful of wrecked cars and those big plastic barrels that the Entity tends to leave lying around all over the Nightmare. Maybe it thinks they add colour, who knows, but they seem to turn up everywhere, even when it wouldn’t make sense for them to be there. That’s just the Nightmare in a nutshell, though, isn’t it. It’s full of odd shit that doesn’t make sense.

Regardless, the Killers have made good on the opportunity to give themselves and their clothes a wash while they have it, and Jake supposes he could do a lot worse than join them, but it’s taking him some time to adjust to the local attitudes towards casual nudity. There’s nothing to be done about it, Evan rightly points out; it’s hardly as if any of them have any spare outfits to hand. Jake’s just going to have to get used to it, and he’s doing his best, he really is, but feeling so self-conscious about making sure that he doesn’t even _look_ like he’s staring at anybody soon becomes rather more taxing than he’d prefer.

Nobody else cares, for crying out loud. Why is he getting so stressed out about it?

“You can play in a minute. You can- I said- _IN A MINUTE, I SAID!_ For fucks sake!”

He resists the urge to look over his shoulder at the familiar sound of Evan losing his patience, and instead focuses harder on scouring the stains out of his cargo pants with a stone as he kneels hunched over in the shallows. It isn’t working terribly well. Evidently, there’s a knack to washing your clothes without soap or detergent that he hasn’t got the hang of just yet, and Jake wonders if he ought to just pull himself together and ask Philip how to do it.

_Just fucking do it, you coward. Just stand up, walk over there and ask. Nobody’s going to give a shit. They’re all just as naked as you are._

This isn’t a school locker room, and he isn’t here with a bunch of idiot kids. There’s nothing to worry about. He’s being stupid.

Fuck it. Fuck it, fuck it. Gathering up his clothes and as much of his courage as he can find, Jake gets to his feet and wades into the deeper water, over to the big, half-submerged rock where Philip is giving something that turns out to be Max’s filthy A-shirt a thorough dunking in a bid to loosen some of the dirt.

“H, hey, Philip?”

Christ. The water’s only a little way above Jake’s knees, nowhere near deep enough for him to be happy about it, but he pushes the thought to the back of his mind as best he can as Philip looks up from his work with a friendly tilt of his head.

“I suck at this, man. How d’you do this?”

Sure enough, to Jake’s great relief, Philip regards him no differently than he would at any other time or place, and cheerfully beckons him over to see what he’s doing. As it turns out, Jake was part of the way there in trying to use the big stone he’d picked up, but the real, proper technique is decidedly less intuitive than the one he’d come up with: It involves, apparently, giving whatever you’re trying to wash a good soak, and then repeatedly beating it against a big, flat rock to dislodge the dirt so that it comes out a little more easily when you put it back in the water.

Incredibly, it does seem to work! That, and there’s also something quite therapeutic about grabbing something and smacking it against a rock, over and over again, with all of your tiny, naked might. It’s really not the worst thing in the world.

While Philip is washing Max’s clothes, Evan’s further out, struggling to wrangle Max himself for long enough to wash _him,_ with some success. Mercifully, there are no rocks at all involved in that particular chore, although Jake can’t help but worry that Sally’s going to show up at any moment and suggest that there ought to be. It seems like the sort of needlessly shitty thing she’d say.

Unfortunately, Jake can boast neither Philip’s strength nor his stamina, not by a long stretch, and he’s soon pausing to catch his breath and give his arms a rest. Thank goodness his clothes aren’t as muddy as Max’s.

Judging by the conspicuous peace and quiet, Jake guesses that Evan has finally managed to get Max to settle down, and, sure enough, there they are, Max either sitting or kneeling - the water’s just shy of coming up to his shoulders, in any case - while Evan stands behind him and makes a good go of scrubbing the mud out of his hair. It’s just like Evan said back at Lisa’s; they’re doing their best to take care of him, and really, Jake reflects, they’re far from the most terrible people he could have ended up with.

There is, however, something rather odd about seeing Philip without his face painted, in the same way that seeing Claudette without her glasses on is odd. With the paint having been washed away, Philip’s already characteristically blank expression seems yet blanker still, and while Jake might have been unsettled by it if they’d come here in the past, lately he’s been finding it difficult to be unsettled by Philip. Jake knows him too well, now. He’s a good and gentle thing, painted or not.

He does find himself looking back at Evan, though, more than once. Unlike Philip’s paints, Evan’s mask appears to be a permanent fixture, and despite the time he’s spent in the water, the ruddy substance that stains his shoulders and back, whatever it is, hasn’t faded at all. But, that’s not what Jake’s eye is drawn to. It’s those wounds, those awful, gaping wounds, every time. They really are everywhere, aren’t they.

Well. Not _quite_ everywhere. The Entity might yet have some little shred of mercy in it.

Jake averts his eyes yet again, feeling his cheeks getting hot, and goes back to bludgeoning his cargo pants with renewed determination. It seems deeply unfair that Evan should have to suffer for what is, ostensibly, an eternity, just because he had the nerve to talk back _once._ One little blip on what must be an otherwise spotless record, and here he is, with a back and shoulder full of twisted metal, and cut to ribbons from head to toe. No wonder nobody else thinks to argue about the work; Evan is a walking example for all to see, and maybe, Jake reasons, that’s the point of it. Maybe that’s why the Entity keeps him in such an awful state. Because it’s _convenient,_ and to hell with the suffering it causes.

The slapping of Jake’s wet cargo pants against the rock grows ever so slightly louder.

Max is doing well to sit still for so long, though. He’s usually too impulsive to tolerate sitting still for more than a little while. There was some fuss getting him to settle, but Evan’s managed to smooth the matter over with him well enough, and he’s still got a few tricks up his proverbial sleeve to keep things that way for some time longer.

 _“- There were comfits in the cabin, and apples in the hold~!_ _  
_ _The sails were made of silk, and the masts were made o’ gold~!”_

Wow, his voice really carries out here in the open, doesn’t it. Then again, that he’s putting some bit of effort into it might have something to do with that, and Jake, as he and Philip both pause briefly in their work, hasn’t failed to notice that Evan sounds a little better every time he sings. He’s got a big voice. It’s hard not to be impressed by it, just for that.

He did say that he’d been educated, back when he was younger. Maybe musical lessons were a part of that. That’s an old-timey thing that folks used to get their kids doing, right?

Although, saying that, Jake got roped into singing lessons too, back when he was a kid, but he dropped those like a sack of hot rocks as soon as he was able and never looked back. Hearing Evan now, he almost regrets it; even as often as he’s heard Evan say that it’s just for Max’s sake, that he only does it because Max responds well to it, it does sound an awful lot as though he might be enjoying himself. If Jake had known, back then, that singing could be _fun,_ he might have stuck at it.

He wonders, idly, plunging his shirt into the water for another rinse, if that song is the only one Evan remembers, or if it’s just the one that Max keeps asking for, or if he’s secretly hoarding any others he might know for when Max finally gets bored of this first one. Jake wouldn’t put it past him. Evan’s shrewd like that.

By the time his clothes are finally something approaching reasonably clean, Jake’s arms are weak and burning. Philip, meanwhile, seems no worse for wear at all, despite having had so much more to do, and he’s happy to take Jake’s clothes and hang them from a low tree branch with everyone else’s so that he can light a fire under them, start getting them dry. After that, he leaves Jake to keep an eye on them while he goes off to make use of a few of those plastic barrels, filling them with water to take back to the clearing and use later, and putting another aside, empty. Jake supposes he’ll see what Philip intends to do with it eventually.

Man. There’s something weirdly _good_ about sitting around naked next to an open fire. It’s warm. Well, obviously it’s warm, of course it is, but it’s _more_ warm. Not that he’s intending to get used to it, mind you, but still. It’s weirdly, oddly _good,_ and good enough that Jake is content to stay there, even after everyone else finishes their chores.

If he closes his eyes, it feels almost like sitting in the sun.

Meanwhile, now that he’s decently tidy again, Max doesn’t have to sit still or behave himself anymore, and finally has free reign to run off and play in the deeper water.

“Max!” _Almost_ free reign. “No further than that, Max. Stay where I can see you.”

Evan has parked himself heavily in the shallows, cross-legged and with the hunched over posture of someone who intends to sit there for a good while. Even as tired as he is, he’s still keeping a close eye on everyone, still making sure that Max doesn’t wander too far or get himself into difficulty, and Jake is actually _quite relieved_ for him when Philip comes to join him, carrying that empty barrel with him. A brief, wordless glance is shared between them, before Philip dips the barrel into the water, fills it part way, and then slowly pours it out over Evan’s shoulders, and although Evan doesn’t speak, doesn’t give so much as a sigh, Jake does see his head dip, just a bit.

The water is cold, and likely soothes his wounds. In spite of everything that the Entity might have tried to do to him, there’s still some scant little respite to be found for Evan, and in that moment, it seems to Jake as though Philip, in standing dutifully at Evan’s side, filling that barrel and gently pouring it out, filling it and pouring it out, filling it and pouring it out, is performing some quiet, tender act of rebellion against their sadistic taskmaster.

Thank goodness for Philip.

Jake stays where he is, next to the fire. It’s warm there, true enough, but more than that, it feels too much like he’d be intruding if he went over there and bothered them. Their little ritual is clearly something that he isn’t meant to be a part of; he can understand that. They’re close, Evan and Philip, and Jake often gets the impression that there’s very little that they wouldn’t do for each other. Spoiling this rare peace they’re sharing while Max is occupied would be exceptionally selfish.

If only Jake’s fellows back at their campfire could love each other half as much.

Eventually, Jake’s clothes dry out, and he supposes that he ought to put them on. They’re certainly far from spotless, but they smell better than they did, and it gives him cause to wonder if that might be one of the undoubtedly myriad sources of friction between the Survivors “back home”. On top of being perpetually strung out and exhausted and either bored senseless or running for their lives with nothing in between, everyone smells like a heady mix of roadkill and yesterday’s gym bag, left out in the midsummer heat. Suddenly finding himself wearing reasonably clean clothes on a clean body has really driven home just how desensitised he’d become to it; if he gets too used to this, he might just gag if - when, _when_ \- he finds his way back.

Of course he’s going to find his way back. Maybe… maybe not _right this minute,_ but, he is. Soon. Eventually. At some point. Of course he is.

Well, Evan’s overalls are dry. The mud is gone, but no amount of scrubbing or soaking or beating them against a rock is going to get the bloodstains out of them, Jake is willing to wager.

They’re huge. Well, obviously they are; _Evan_ is huge, and for a moment, Jake contemplates stepping into them just to get the measure of him, but he shortly decides against it. That would be silly, childish, and he’s not sure if he’d ever live it down if anybody saw him. Casual nudity is one thing, but getting yourself laughed at for being genuinely ridiculous is very much another, thank you, and Jake can do without it.

… That’s quite a stark realisation, in fact, when it occurs to him. Before he came here, Jake’s concerns lay with things like staying alive, staying hidden, avoiding being maimed or killed. But now, he’s worried about being laughed at. That’s crazy. Then again, he remembers a time, vaguely, before any of this came about, when being laughed at or made a fool of _did_ feel like death, when he’d known people who genuinely couldn’t conceive of anything worse than having their feelings hurt.

Remarkable how one’s priorities can change, isn’t it.

Then again, a lot of things have changed, haven’t they. He’s sincerely relieved, for one thing, when Evan, Philip and Max finally make their way to shore, and he can, at long last, stop keeping half an eye on the treeline. A short while later, everyone is dressed and it’s time to go home, barrels of water and all, and not a moment too soon, as far as Jake is concerned.

(Just one of those barrels must weigh twice what Jake does, if not more, and yet he watches, in awe, as Evan cheerfully makes the rest of the walk home carrying one on each fucking shoulder. Incredible.)

The quiet peace of the clearing is comfortable and welcoming. Jake is happy to come back to it, and so is everyone else - as nice is it is to visit a friend and wash off some dirt, they’ve all got things that they’d like to be getting on with. They’ve only got to set foot in the clearing for a moment, in fact, for Max to run off to the shack to find his tools and his other bits and pieces. His chainsaw desperately needs to be tinkered with, it would appear. Looks like Evan and Philip still have a little while to rest, then.

_“Evaaaaaaan!”_

Or not.

When Max raises the alarm, it’s more with indignant annoyance than anything else, like a huffy youngster tattling on a sibling.

“Myers is here again!”

“Is he, now?” Evan is annoyed too, but he’s considerably more dangerous for it. “Well, then.”

He’s barely had time to sit down, and now he’s having to heave himself back up to his feet again. Sure enough, there’s Myers, lurking at the edge of the clearing, and Evan is none too pleased to see him.

“Obviously,” he growls, cracking the knuckles of one fist against the palm of the other hand, “Mr Myers needs to learn some fucking manners.”

Max is already grinning as he watches Evan cross the clearing. He’s far too eager to see Myers get another beating, but Jake can’t pretend to be any different. It was immensely gratifying to see him get slugged in the face before, and, given that that initial trouncing doesn’t appear to have been enough to dissuade him, it’s likely that Evan is planning to pour it on a bit more generously this time, to really drive the message home. Philip, too, is quite content to stand aside and watch; truly, Myers has no friends in this place.

Back in the woods, Evan gave Myers a chance to walk away, gave him the benefit of the doubt, but there’s none of that here. Evan’s shoulders are squared, his head lowered and his long strides quickened with fierce determination and focus - now this, _this_ is the Evan that Jake remembers seeing in trials. A heartbeat later and he’s closed the distance, his suddenly outstretched hand just barely falling short of catching Myers when he hastily ducks out of the way. Myers, having evidently realised his mistake, is now hurrying to back away, but the display of submission isn’t enough to appease Evan now, and a moment later he’s caught Myers by the collar of his overalls and hurls him roughly back into the middle of the clearing.

“You wanted to be here!” Evan roars at him as he stumbles and tries to stay on his feet. “Well! You’re fuckin’ here now, aren’t you!”

There’s no more hesitation from Evan as he once again closes the distance between himself and Myers, and though Myers’ stance changes as he prepares to fight back, Evan doesn’t give him space to retaliate, swinging for him with uniquely brutal intent the instant he’s within arm’s reach. The blow knocks Myers off balance, but Evan doesn’t let him fall, grabbing fistfulls of the front of his overalls to pull him in and headbutt him in the face.

Every time. Every _fucking_ time Jake begins to grow comfortable in viewing Evan as a person, he gets reminded of the monster that Evan really is, and he’s thankful, immeasurably so, that Evan pulls his punches during trials, that he obeys the Entity’s rules, that he plays the game fairly, or, at least, as fairly as it can be played. If he were even momentarily bereft of that sense of fair play, the Survivors would never stand a chance against him; if Evan so much as _broke into a run_ during a trial, there’d be no escape for anyone. But there are no such rules here, are there. Here, Evan can do as he pleases, and, as Jake watches him slam Myers back against the trunk of a tree by the ironlike grasp he still has on his overalls, he certainly seems to be making good on it.

With Myers pinned against the tree, Evan leans into him, and growls through gritted teeth.

“You’ve no fucking business being here,” he snarls. “Do you understand!? The boy is _ours,_ Myers, and _we’ll_ be the ones to decide what to do with him!”

Myers is grasping vainly at Evan’s wrists now, kicking and squirming and struggling to escape from his grasp, but it’s thoroughly futile - he’s got about as much chance of overpowering Evan as he’s got of growing wings and flying away, and surely, he must know it. Evan knows it too, and responds to Myers’ useless grappling by rocking back and ramming him into the tree a second time.

“I’m gonna make sure it sinks in this time,” Evan rumbles, his jaw clenched. “The boy is _ours,_ not yours, and if I _ever_ catch you here again, mark my words, I will see to it that you leave on your hands and fucking knees. _At best._ Do I make myself clear?”

Predictably, Myers says nothing, and only redoubles his efforts to fight Evan’s grasp.

“I don’t think he gets it!” Max is all but baying for Myers’ blood, now. “He don’t look like he gets it, Evan!”

“He doesn’t, does he.” And Evan, not looking away from Myers for a moment, is frighteningly prepared to oblige him. “Seems I’ll have to _explain matters_ in greater detail, doesn’t it.”

At that, the struggling becomes frantic. Myers is panicking, and as much as Jake knows that the right, good and virtuous thing to do would be to have a little sympathy for him, it’s far too cathartic, far too satisfying, to see Myers suffer in the way he and his friends have suffered so many times before. Jake himself can recall far too many occasions upon which he’s been caught in Myers’ grasp, when he’s had to struggle for his life to get free of it, when he’s been maimed for having failed. No, this is far too much like something he might have fantasised about back at the campfire, and although he’s not quite brave enough to step away from the shack and let Myers see him to really rub it in, he’s perfectly happy to stay put and watch it all happen.

Evan does nothing more to Myers for a few moments, giving him some time to see how fruitless his attempts to wriggle free really are, watching him, letting him be afraid and helpless for a while. Perhaps he has some appreciation for how Jake must feel, who knows, but in any case, he does eventually tire of it, and Jake merely stands there, looking on, as Evan drives his knee cruelly into Myers’ gut, once, twice, and then a third time, with a little extra vigor. Myers’ body crumples with each blow, but Evan holds him up against the tree, preventing him from doubling over.

_Wow, what a shame. Having a hard time feeling sorry for you, buddy._

That being said, Myers is tough, Jake has to give him that much. Even after all of that, he’s still fighting, still trying to get away, and when Evan draws his right hand back in a fist to wind up for a punch, keeping a solid grip on him with his left, Myers becomes outright desperate.

Jake sees the knife materialise in his hand a heartbeat too late.

Catastrophically outmatched, Myers raises his arm and plunges the blade into Evan’s flesh, over and over again and as rapidly as he can into whatever part of his attacker he can reach in a terrified last-ditch attempt to discourage him. It turns out to be an ill-advised move; Myers’ strikes only serve to enrage Evan further, and he responds in kind, punching Myers repeatedly in the face and gut with all of his terrifying might. It’s more than enough to put a stop to Myers’ assault, but not enough, apparently, to stop him from scrambling to his feet when Evan finally turns and throws him to the ground and fleeing into the woods.

_“YOU SUNNUVA BITCH!”_

Max is livid that Myers would dare to pull a weapon on Evan like that when Evan was “courteous” enough to come at him unarmed, and he’s already sprinting past the treeline after him when his chainsaw revs and roars to life in his hands.

“Get back here ‘n’ take yer fuckin’ lumps!”

Philip is hot on his tail, although he’s more concerned about catching Max before he gets lost than he is with running Myers down, and that leaves Jake alone in the clearing with Evan.

While Evan does take a few steps after them, as if he wants to follow, he comes to a stop after only a little way, and then just… stands there, staring. He huffs and shakes his head after a moment, and Jake, seeing him look around, initially assumes that Myers must have managed to hit him in the face or the temple at some point. He seems dazed, unsteady on his feet - but even if Myers _had_ hit him, it couldn’t have been that hard, could it? Jake’s never seen anyone hit Evan hard enough to dizzy him like this.

But then Evan turns again, and Jake sees it: the blood streaming down the left side of his throat, over his collarbone, bright, shimmering red against the dull hue of his skin, surging like a torrent with every beat of his heart out of what must be a wound somewhere on his neck. He wasn’t aiming, but in his panic, Myers must have managed to hit an artery or something. An accident, but a lucky one for him. That son of a bitch.

There’s no time to think about Myers, however. Though he’s battling to stay upright and start walking after his friends, the single step that Evan manages to take sees him dropping to his knees, and he can’t summon up the strength to heave himself back up again. Jake’s already running to help him when he tries for the second time to stand and fails, sinking to the ground like some stricken beast as the energy literally drains out of him and haemorrhages all over the dirt, but he stops just short of getting within reach of him. Even now, Evan is fighting to lift himself up again, clawing at the earth with the effort of doing it, but it’s not enough. He’s panting, furious, and for the amount of blood he’s already lost, he must be becoming delirious. There’s a more than decent chance that he’ll lash out if Jake comes too near, and even like this, he could certainly do some very serious harm.

But with a wound like that, Evan will be dead within minutes, if that long, and Jake is all too familiar with where people go when they die in this place. If Evan dies, the Entity will be there waiting for him, and there’s a long list of transgressions that it will no doubt be itching to punish him for when he falls into its grasp. Harbouring a Survivor, attacking a fellow Killer, letting Philip soothe his wounds, _singing;_ Evan’s crimes are abundant and grievous.

No. No. Fuck it. Fuck that.

“Evan!” Jake calls out to him as he kneels at his side, almost shouting. “Evan, can you hear me!?”

If he can hear Jake, he isn’t paying attention. All Evan wants to do is get up and follow after Max and Philip, but he can’t even drag his belly up off the ground now, despite his strenuous efforts.

“Evan!”

There’s still no response. Evan doesn’t even appear to notice him, and Jake supposes that it might be just as well. Shit, he’s slowing down. As much as it’ll make it easier to lay hands on him and put some pressure on the wound - wherever the fuck it is, Jake can’t actually _see_ it for all the blood - the fact that Evan is moving around less and less as the seconds pass can only mean that he’s fading. There’s no time for hesitation, then; Jake quickly shuffles closer and presses his hands over the spot that the blood seems to be rushing from as hard as he can.

“Evan, stay still! Stay still! Stay down!”

Shit, shit, it’s no good. The blood just keeps coming, bubbling up between his fingers and out from under his palms, thick, hot and wet; shit, there has to be something else he can do, shit, fuck.

“Evan! Evan, easy! Easy, man! Stay down!”

His shirt. Maybe that’ll do, maybe that’ll be enough, if he can just, just - maybe that’ll do. Jake hurries to pull off his shirt and roll it up as best as he can without wasting too much time.

“Evan! C’mon, talk to me!”

“Hh, ff- piss off.”

“Hey, hey, that’s good, man! Stay with me, okay?”

“Piss… piss off!”

He’s not taking kindly to having the tightly bundled shirt pressed against his neck, but he’s too weak to put up much resistance. Jake feels Evan try to shove back against him, but it’s hardly anything at all, and he’s is having a hard time even lifting his head, now. The shirt is almost soaked through already, but it seems like it’s doing something, at least. It might be enough, maybe, if Jake can hold it in place for long enough.

“Evan, talk to me! C’mon man, you’ve gotta stay with me!”

“Hh, hh… ff…”

“Evan! C’mon!”

He’s just about stopped struggling, but Jake knows that it’s not because he wants to. He’s going to have to keep him awake, keep him talking, or he’s going to lose consciousness, and that’ll be the end of it.

“Evan! Evan, I need you to tell me about your dad!”

Evan’s father is the only element of his past that Jake’s ever heard him talk about with any real degree of conviction, the only thing he seems to remember clearly.

“I wanna hear about your dad, Evan! Tell me about your dad!”

“Hh, piss off…!”

“I’m not gonna piss off, Evan! Tell me about your dad!”

“Piss off!”

Well, arguing with him is as good a way to keep him awake as any. But, after telling him - albeit somewhat pathetically - to piss off a few more times, he does finally seem to realise who Jake actually _is_.

“M, Man…”

“That’s right, it’s me, it’s the Man-Cub. _Your_ Man-Cub, remember? C’mon, Evan. I wanna hear about your dad, okay? Tell me about your dad.”

“My… my dad?”

“Yeah, your dad. Tell me about your dad. You said he was a gentleman, right? Tell me about your dad.”

“Yeah… yeah… proper… proper gentleman… G, good…”

He’s too lightheaded and confused to question why Jake would want to ask, apparently, because now that he’s started, he begins to speak quite freely, if very intermittently and with a lot of slurring and fractured sentences.

“We… the mine… ran… ran the mine…”

“The mine? Was that the business, Evan? You ran a mining operation?”

“Mm… to, together, yeah. Ran the… the…”

Holy shit. The sickly metallic stench of Evan’s blood is just filling Jake’s head; he feels like he’s swimming in it, _drowning_ in it. The shirt is completely sodden with it by now, so much so that it seems to bleed itself if Jake presses on it or squeezes it too hard, and Jake is slick with it halfway up to his elbows. It’s getting sticky on his skin as it begins to dry in the air, but he can’t afford to worry about that now.

He chokes down the bile that’s threatening to rise up into his throat, and presses on.

“Was it good, Evan? Did you guys do well running the mine?”

“Yeah. Hh, it… hh…”

“Evan, tell me. Was it good? Did you make a lot of money?”

“Y, yeah, yeah, we… we… hh… good, yeah. Yeah.”

“You guys were rich bitches, huh, Evan?”

“Hh, hh.” That might have been a chuckle. “Hh, yeah. Yeah.”

To begin with, the things that Evan talks about are things that Jake has heard before, that his father was good, that he made a good example of himself, that he took good care of his son. He’s heard about the business before, too, although not that it was a mining operation, and he’s heard that Evan did, eventually, have to start running that business on his father’s behalf when his health began to deteriorate. What he has not heard before, however, is what comes after that.

“... There was… they… fuckin’... creepin’ around… ff… fuckin’... waitin’ for him to _die!_ Hh, hhh, ff… His… his money…!”

“Who was, Evan? Who was waiting?”

“F, fucking… hh… _hh…_ fucking _vultures…!_ They… ff, hh…!”

It’s not clear who these people were, exactly, but whoever they might have been, Evan is still angry with them. A century or more later, and Evan is still angry; his chest his heaving where he lies, his fists clenched, teeth gritted. He’s furious, still.

_Vultures._

Furious, and awake. That’s good.

“What happened? Evan? Tell me what happened. I wanna know what happened.”

Thank fuck, the bleeding does seem to be slowing. It’s a remarkable testament to just how far beyond human Evan really is that he’s still ticking over at this point, however scarcely. He should have been dead within the space of a handful of minutes, if that, but here he is, hanging on, and _furious._

“I, I couldn’t,” he stammers, huffing and wheezing with the effort of speaking. “Couldn’t, couldn’t let them. H, had to… had to -” He swallows dryly. “- had to, my, my dad, I hh… I had to. Couldn’t… couldn’t… couldn’t let them...!”

It’s all very garbled and incoherent but Jake is soon coming to realise what, exactly, Evan is getting at, what he’s about to say, and, in realising it, he finds himself caught on the horns of a terrible dilemma.

_Please. Please, don’t say it. Don’t say what I think you’re going to say. I like you. I don’t want to know about this. I don’t want to hear about it. Please._

But then, obviously, why the fuck did he _think_ Evan ended up here? Jake knew, he fucking knew, that Evan must have done something like this. He wouldn’t have ended up on this side of the fence, wouldn’t have ended up a Killer, the Entity’s prized pet, if he hadn’t shown some considerable willingness to kill, and he’s entirely too cognisant to be able to use the same excuse for it that Max can give.

Jake clenches his jaw.

“.... Tell me what happened, Evan. What did you do? Tell me what you did.”

“The… the mineshaft. I, I took them, hh… hh… the mineshaft. I… I had to, all of them. I had to. My, my dad, I couldn’t… couldn’t… hh… couldn’t let them, hh… I… hh… had… had to. All… all of them…!”

All of them.

He knew it. He _fucking_ knew it. Jake can’t pretend to be surprised, at all. He fucking knew.

But then, that begs the question, doesn’t it?

“... Is that when he took you, Evan? Him upstairs, is that when he took you?”

Evan just barely manages to nod.

“I didn’t… didn’t wanna… I had to s, stay, had to… my, my dad, I had to… I couldn’t… didn’t wanna… my… he, he needed me, I c, couldn’t, hh, couldn’t…”

“You wanted to stay and look after your dad?”

He nods again.

“Is… is that when you argued, Evan?”

He gives another weak nod, another pained, laborious heave of his chest, and Jake can’t tell whether the noise that comes out of him with it is a cough or a sob.

“Sh, should’ve… should’ve… ff, should’ve ff, fought, hh, harder… should’ve… t, tried harder… hh, nng… should’ve… should’ve…”

As if he could have won against the Entity, at all, ever, no matter how hard he’d fought or resisted.

“I didn’t… didn’t wanna… didn’t…”

Jake is already trying to turn it over in his head, trying to explain it away. Evan was protecting his father, protecting his family. Protecting his family is all that Evan does, even now. He’s not _all_ bad. Surely not. Surely, surely not.

Catching himself doing this, however, makes him feel sick to the pit of his stomach. He _killed_ people, for fucks sake, dropped a fucking mineshaft on them, and there wouldn’t have been an “all of them” if there hadn’t been a decently-sized crowd in there when he did it. Is Jake really going to try to sympathise with that?

_But he was protecting his family._

Fuck it. Fuck it, don’t think about it. Now isn’t the time for this. Just forget about it, focus on the task at hand. It’s not like it changes anything about him, is it. Knowing what he did doesn’t change anything. He’s still the same person Jake knew and liked before he said anything about it.

(It does change things. Of course it fucking changes things.)

What a fucking, fucking mess, what a shitty fucking mess this all is, and not just because Jake’s freshly washed shirt is drenched in slowly-cooling blood, along with his cargo pants, and himself.

“... It’s okay. It’s okay, Evan. Just stay with me, okay? I’m here. Stay with me.”

Looking again at the aforementioned shirt, he finally gathers enough courage to lift it away from Evan’s neck, and, mercifully, the bleeding does seem to have stopped. It takes some effort to wipe away enough of the blood to actually see the wound, but he gets there in the end, and sure enough, it’s closing, full of those weird, glowing embers that seem to make up everything in the Nightmare. It’s going to take some time for Evan to recover, most likely, but at least they’re not going to lose him. At least he’s not going to have to face up to the Entity.

Still, Jake keeps talking to him and keeps asking him things, although he’s cautious to keep the subject matter safe, tame and far less charged than the previous topic of conversation. He’d really prefer not to make any other new discoveries, if it can possibly be helped.

“Evan, sing a song for me.”

“Wh, what?”

“Sing a song for me. I wanna hear a song.”

“Hh… f, fuck’s sake…”

“Please, man. C’mon.”

There’s some huffing and some grumbling, and Jake fully expects, after listening to that for a while, that he’s going to be told to piss off again, but in the end, Evan doesn’t disappoint him. His voice is a hoarse, gravelly croak, and he has to fight to get the words out at all, never mind sensibly and in the right order, but he does it, seemingly for no other reason than because Jake has asked him to.

 _“I… saw a ship a… a-sailin’... a-sailin’ on the sea…_ _  
_ _And oh, b, but it was…_ hh… _l, laden with… pretty things for thee…”_

“No, not that one.” Jake presses him, hoping to bring him around more. “I want a different song. Sing a different song for me.”

Well. Evan has to think about it now, and the lengthy pause that follows makes Jake fearful that he’s demanded too much, but, true to form, Evan comes through for him in the end.

 _“... Last night as I slumbered, I h… had a strange dream…_  
_T’was a dream that b… brings… distant friends near…_  
_I dreamt of… of… the f… faces of… people I love…_  
_And I awoke… with an ‘eart… full’a cheer…”_

To Jake’s relief, Evan does appear to be perking up, and now that it looks like he’s out of the woods - metaphorically speaking, at least - letting him rest isn’t such a scary thought.

“... Thanks, Evan.”

“Mm.”

“Are you tired?”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna take a nap?”

“... Will… will you…”

“I’ll be okay. And I’ll make sure you’re okay, too.”

“Hm.”

Jake’s assurances, thankfully, are enough for Evan, and he goes quiet and still after that. It’s frightening for a moment or two, but Jake can see, when he looks closely, that Evan is still breathing. He’s still here, and, as illogical and irrational an idea as it might be, it feels as though he’ll be alright if Jake just keeps an eye on him. It’s stupid, of course - if Evan goes, then he goes, and there’s nothing that Jake will be able to do about it just by being there with him - but at least he can _feel_ like he’s helping.

However, now he’s left alone with his thoughts.

What a fucking mess. Jake inwardly curses himself for getting so cozy with Evan. He knew. He _knew_ there had to be something, it was just a case of finding out what it was. There’s some shitty irony to his own hands being so caked in blood right now, isn’t there?

Evan is a bad person. Jake knows his type, they draw a little circle around themselves and their loved ones, and they’ll do anything for the people inside that circle, but the people outside of it don’t even register as human to them, and whilst Jake has never personally met anyone like that before now, he’s seen enough of them. He’s seen how they vote. They’re out there. Evan is a bad person. There’s no getting around it. He’s a bad person.

Then again, this is something that Jake had already accepted about him, isn’t it? He knew, and yet he still pushed his way into Evan’s circle, still got cuddly with Evan and his bunch, still got close to them. Close enough, in fact, to wind up slathered in Evan’s blood for trying to keep him out of the Entity’s clutches, of all things. If he’d seen the same thing happen back when he still lived with his fellow Survivors, he would have been just _thrilled_ about it, about the possibility of a Killer getting a little taste of his own medicine. That must be proof enough of where Jake’s loyalties have come to lie.

He knew, and he still stuck around.

It doesn’t change anything.

_You’re a fucking monster. Do you realise what you’re telling yourself? All that shit you talked about not forgiving them hasn’t amounted to much if you’re willing to sweep this under the rug. You’re disgusting._

Well, he’s _not_ sweeping it under the rug, Jake reminds himself. He’s acknowledging it, he’s taking it into account, and he’s going to remember it. It just… doesn’t change anything.

Although, he admits, somewhat selfishly, it might only be because he doesn’t _want_ anything to change. Evan’s been good to him, Evan’s looked after him, Evan’s kept him safe. And, really, if Jake is very honest indeed, he does genuinely _like_ Evan, and he knows that Evan likes him, too. He’s found a good little place here amongst Evan, Max and Philip, a place where he can feel safe and comfortable and _wanted,_ for the first time in god knows how long, and if he lets things change because of this revelation, all of that might go away. Is that a price he’s willing to pay, just for the sake of being a “good” person? The thought of what he’d have to go back to if he decided to be moral about this chills him to the core.

He rubs his face, remembering too late about the blood on his hands. His shoulders sag as the quietest, weariest sigh escapes him.

It’ll be okay. He’s still got Philip. He still doesn’t know how Philip got here. Philip is still _good._  He’ll take it. He’ll take whatever he can get at this point, anything that he can soothe himself with. It’ll be okay. Just don’t think about it too much.

It’ll be okay.

Where the hell have Max and Philip got to? Jake wonders if Max ever did manage to catch Myers in the end. He hopes so. He hopes Max caught him and carved his fucking legs off. Still, if he’s still gone after this long, he must be lost, and he’s probably going to be gone for a good while longer yet. If Philip kept up with him well enough that they didn’t get separated, though, at least they’ll be together. Max gets so scared if he winds up lost by himself; there’s been a fairly hefty handful of unhappy occasions wherein he’s run off into the woods after a bird or something and neither Evan nor Philip have managed to catch him before he disappears, and every time, he’s come back to the clearing, much, much later, frightened and tearful. With a bit of luck, though, Philip will have been able to stay with him. They’re still lost, most likely, but it won’t be so bad if they’re lost together.

It’s very empty here without them, though. There’s no sound at all except the wind in the trees and the grass, and Evan’s soft breathing. His breaths are a lot less shallow now, less frantic. That’s good. Knowing that he’s going to be alright makes it far easier for Jake to relax, sitting there on the ground next to him, and between that and the gentle quiet, it’s not difficult at all to simply look up at the sky and zone out for a while.

If he looks at the stars for long enough, focuses on them hard enough, even as fake as he knows they are, Jake finds that he can vaguely remember a time before all of this, being outside somewhere at night, someone’s college party, maybe at their dorm or in the backyard at their house, and, after a while, he almost feels like he could be there, almost hear the music and the conversations.

If he can just concentrate, if he can just get inside his own head and stay there for a while.

If he can just…

… Just…

 _It might not be the right time,_  
_I might not be the right one,_  
_But there’s something between us, I have to say,_ _  
‘Cause there’s something between us, anyway._

 _“So, what, do you like her or not?”_  
_“Man, I don’t know. She’s pretty and everything, but…”_  
_“But what?”_  
_“I just… Do you think it’s possible to just appreciate someone… aesthetically? Like, you can think they’re good looking without thinking they’re ‘hot’?”_  
_“What the fuck are you talking about?”_ _  
“I don’t know. Forget about it.”_

 _He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus,_  
_But he talks like a gentleman,_ _  
Like you imagined when you were young._

 _“I can’t, man. I’m supposed to be studying.”_  
_“Fuck that, dude. That’s all you ever do. College is supposed to be fun.”_  
_“College is supposed to be getting an education, man.”_ _  
“Yeah, and how the hell d’you expect to learn anything if you’ve got your head in a damn book all day and night?”_

 _Who’s gonna tell you when it’s too late?_  
_Who’s gonna tell you things aren’t so great?_  
_You can’t go on_  
_Thinking nothing’s wrong_ _  
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?_

 _“Jesus, this beer tastes like shit. Who brought this?”_ _  
_ _“You’ve got too much of a sweet tooth, dude. You need to grow the fuck up.”_

“Well, now. What has happened here?”

The sound of a real voice shatters Jake’s waking dream, bringing him crashing back to the Nightmare, his head snapping to face the direction it came from with a jolt.

“This _is_ interesting.”

Sally. She must have been passing through on her way to or from a trial. In all fairness, if Jake had stumbled upon a scene like the one he’s sitting in the middle of right now, he’d stop and take a look too, but Sally isn’t to be trusted, especially not while Evan isn’t able to stand up to her. She needs to leave.

“Get lost.” Jake glares at her. “Mind your own damn business.”

“Of course you’d say that.” She’s moving closer. “But you can’t expect me to see something like -” She waves disdainfully at Evan. “- like _this,_ and not be curious.”

Curiosity isn’t the half of it, Jake’s willing to bet. Sally might talk more than Myers does, but she’s just as terrible, for different but equally valid reasons, and she’d just love to see Evan wind up on the Entity’s doorstep, wouldn’t she.

There’s nothing else for it. Jake quickly gets to his feet, staying by Evan’s side.

“Fuck off,” he snaps, glowering at Sally. “Go away. Don’t come any closer.”

“Hmph. Or what?” Sally scoffs, and keeps coming. “What are you going to do about me?”

“I said fuck off!”

He’s still got the shiv Evan made for him in his pocket. It won’t be enough to put a stop to her, but it might be enough to discourage her and persuade her to look for a softer target to vent her bitterness on. If he just waits until she grabs him, he might be able to take her by surprise with it.

“This is awfully sweet, isn’t it?” she remarks, sardonically. “Look at you. You’d protect someone like _him?_ Really? That’s ridiculous. How charmingly misguided.”

Unsurprisingly, Sally is not the least bit intimidated by the unkempt, shirtless youngster trying to make himself look threatening in front of her, despite the blood his skin is generously smeared with. Jake bristles and grimaces as best he can, but it’s absurdly impotent, and does nothing to deter Sally’s casual approach. He swallows as she takes her time in coming nearer still, his hand moving to hover over his pocket as he keeps both eyes on her.

“You’ve been spending time with the wrong crowd, boy,” Sally tells him. “But that’s fine. I’ll just have to show you the error of your ways, won’t I.”

“Don’t you ff- _fucking_ touch him, you cow!!”

The terrible growl that comes out of Evan as he tries, once more, to push himself up off the ground is far more frightening than anything Jake could ever hope to produce, and although he can’t hold his own weight up for long enough to tuck a knee under himself and quickly sinks back down, the fact that he’s awake and capable of moving around is sufficient to stop Sally in her tracks. Instantly, her cocky attitude evaporates, and she’s considerably less eager to approach or make any big talk.

If she comes close enough to grab Jake, she’ll be coming close enough for Evan to grab _her._

“Easy, man.” Jake doesn’t turn around to face him, staying put. “Just stay down.”

“Yes, MacMillan.” Sally hisses from a safe distance. “Stay down.”

“Oh, fuck you,” snaps Jake. “Get lost. What the fuck is your problem? We don’t come to wherever the fuck _you_ hang out and harass you. Go back where you came from.”

“So it’s ‘we’ now, is it? I should have guessed. You’re just as depraved as _he_ is.” Sally flicks her hand at Evan again. “As all of them. There’s no hope for any of you.”

“Your attitude fucking sucks. Jesus. You must’ve been the shittiest nurse.”

“Hh. Piss off, Sally. Fuck off.”

Sally barely looks at Evan, instead focusing her attention, albeit still from where she stands - or rather, where she hovers - on Jake’s wanton assault on her character.

“I,” she says, loudly, “I was the only one who _understood!_ Those subhuman wretches, they had no right to exist! I spent half a lifetime being mocked and ruined by those… those _freaks,_ and it was all a waste! Not one of them deserved to be there! What on earth could you ever know about it!?”

It’s so easy to push Sally’s buttons, it really is. She’s so eager to let everybody know how much better she is than them that she just can’t shut up about it, so much so that Jake is developing a pretty shrewd idea of how she might have caught the Entity’s attention, just from listening to her. After all, she, too, must be here, on this side of the fence, for a reason.

That said, however, while she’s still unwilling to take a chance on coming within Evan’s reach despite his weakened state, Jake figures he can afford to poke the hornet’s nest a little harder.

“... Not one of ‘em, huh?” He looks at Sally quizzically. “Seems pretty unlikely to me, I mean, are you sure the problem wasn’t _you?_ Y’know, the single, shitty common factor in all of your fucking issues?”

“How _dare_ you! You have _no idea_ -”

An angry, venomous tirade ensues, and Jake doesn’t catch most of it, but he doubts he’s missing anything, and glances down at Evan for a moment while she goes on. He’s propping himself up on his elbows, every outward breath edged with a snarl as he builds himself up for another attempt at getting to his feet, watching Sally like a hawk all the while. That he’s recovered this much in what must be a relatively short length of time is incredible, but it’s going to be a while yet until he’ll be any good to anyone. Jake still needs to keep Sally away from him.

“... Are you fucking serious?” he asks her, his brow creasing. “Really? Wasn’t there _anyone_ you liked in that place, out of all of those people? Not even one?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Fucking… _come on._ There must have been someone, anyone. I know there was. There had to be somebody you actually liked in that fucking place. One person, at least.”

“Shut up! You don’t know anything!”

“Ah, but that’s not a ‘no’, though, is it.”

“Shut up! You brat! Shut up!”

“Did you kill them, too?”

“You, you -” She’s seething now, but still unwilling to come any closer. “You -”

“That’s fucked up, Sally. You’re fucked up.”

Behind him, Evan shifts his weight a few times as Sally lingers and wordlessly fumes, and for those few, tense moments, they’re both watching her, waiting to see if she’ll snap and lunge for him, but she never does. Perhaps sensing that she’ll only be digging herself deeper into the hole she’s put herself in if she sticks around to argue, Sally instead opts to simply blink away, briefly reappearing at the treeline before vanishing altogether. Both Evan and Jake breathe a tremendous sigh of relief, and Jake drops heavily back to the ground to sit again.

“... Max wasn’t joking about you havin’ a go at her, was he,” chuckles Evan, his voice still ragged. “Bloody hell. Thank you, Man-Cub.”

“Eh.” Jake shrugs, not quite meeting eyes with him. “It’s only what you would’ve done for me, man.”

“I know, I know. But… thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Are you, uh. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll… I’ll get there.”

“Okay, man.”

With a little more time, Evan eventually pulls himself back together enough that he can, with Jake’s help, get upright enough to turn over and sit, and it’s only then that he looks around and notices the blood. It’s everywhere, all over him, all over Jake, all over the ground, and all Evan does for a while is sit there and stare at it.

“... Fuck me,” he breathes, finally. “What… what happened? Is this all mine?”

“Yep. All yours.” Jake, sitting next to him now, looks up at him. “Don’t you remember?”

“I remember beatin’ the daylights out of Myers,” replies Evan. “But… did _he_ do this?”

“Not on purpose. I think he just got lucky and hit you in a bad spot.”

“Hm.”

Evan grumbles, reaching for the still-healing wound and rubbing it. Now that he’s coming around properly, he’s starting to feel it.

“I can see I’ve been too kind to him,” he says, irritably. “He’ll not get any more chances from me.”

But if he doesn’t remember how this happened, then he won’t remember what he told Jake when it was happening, either. Jake fleetingly considers pressing him about it, but decides against it almost immediately. He’d much prefer it to stay buried, and he imagines that Evan would likely prefer it that way, too.

_Just forget about it._

“... Where’s Max?”

“Oh, gee. Uh.” Jake shuffles where he sits. “Well, see, I guess Maxie must’ve got upset that Myers fought dirty and pulled a knife on you, man. When Myers ran, Max went after him.”

“And I suppose that’s where Philip’s gone, too, is it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess he didn’t catch him in time.”

“Well. They’ll be back soon enough, won’t they.”

“Yeah.”

They both fall silent after that. After a while, though, after taking some time to weigh it up, Evan gently nudges Jake with his elbow, muttering his nickname.

“... Man-Cub.”

Jake looks up at him.

“Yeah?”

“Man-Cub, listen.” Evan uneasily repositions himself. "I, ah. I’m sorry. For… for everything I’ve done to you. I am. And I’d hate to ask anything more of you after everything you’ve already done for me, it’s already more than I deserve. But… I want to ask just one more favour of you, if that’s alright.”

“Well…” Jake frowns, concerned by Evan’s tone. “... Sure, I mean. Of course it is.”

“Alright.” There’s another pause as Evan gathers his thoughts. “... Man-Cub,” he says, tentatively, “Look. I, I know that this is an awful lot for me to ask for, and… I understand if you… if you don’t want to do this for me, I do. But… please. If… _when_ things get put back to rights, and you go back where you came from… Please, just… try not to take it personally when I have to do the work.”

Well. That _is_ a big favour, isn’t it.

“You know,” he goes on, “That it’s not what I want. I wouldn’t be doing any of it if I had a choice, you know that. It’s just… I can’t refuse. I _don’t_ have a choice. And I’m very, very sorry for that. You don’t have to forgive me, I would never expect you to forgive me, but… at least, please. Don’t take it personally. Can you… can you do that for me, Man-Cub?”

Evan’s expression is as impossible to read as ever, but he sounds so weary and full of regret that Jake supposes that he doesn’t need to see his face.

“... Yeah. Yeah,” he replies, eventually. “I think I can do that. But… don’t you take it personally either, okay? If you can promise me that, we’ve got a deal.”

“Oh, mate. I never took it personally in the first place. None of us are here because we want to be.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it. Call it a deal, then.”

Jake offers Evan his hand to shake. Evan chuckles hoarsely, taking it, and Jake’s bloodied hand is dwarfed by his massive, calloused palm.

“Good. Then we have an agreement, don’t we. Thanks, Man-Cub. I appreciate it.”

“It’s okay.”

A hundred years is a long time for someone to change. Maybe… maybe he’s not so bad. It’s a reach, and a long one, but Jake is far too keen to believe in it.

Sure enough, not much later, Max and Philip return, walking into the clearing hand in hand. Max really does look very sorry for himself, holding onto Philip’s hand like he might just disappear if he lets go of him; they must’ve been wandering around lost for a good while. All of that is forgotten in an instant when they see Evan and Jake sitting there covered in blood, though.

“Holy shit!” Max’s eyes widen as he and Philip run over. “What happened!? Wh, where’d all this blood come from!?”

“It… It’s mine,” Evan admits, somewhat reluctantly. “It’s my blood.”

The reason for his reluctance becomes apparent very, very quickly: no sooner has he said it, Philip is kneeling down in front of him, cupping Evan’s face in his hands, checking him for injuries, or new ones, at least, until Evan grudgingly tips his head to the side to expose his neck and show him the wound. Seeing it does nothing to satisfy Philip’s concern, however, and Evan can only sit there and put up with being hugged and fretted over after that.

“Stop it. Stop. Don’t. Don’t fuss. For fucks sake, Philip, don’t fuss.”

“Evan! What the fuck!” Max cries, in terrified outrage. “You didn’t try’n kill yourself, did’ja!?”

“No!” Evan shakes himself free of Philip’s worried hands as best he can, but to no avail. “No. I didn’t, Maxie. Don’t… don’t worry. It was Myers, alright? Myers did this. He got me better than I thought, that’s all.”

“Did… did you have to go upstairs?”

“No, Maxie. No, I didn’t. The Man-Cub looked after me.”

Everyone’s eyes are on Jake, then. Max stares, fascinated.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Wow!” His face lights up as he grins at Jake. “Man-Cub, you’re the best!”

“Aw, gee.” Jake is wholly unable to resist grinning back at him. “You think?”

As he sits there, listening to Max sing his praises and having his shoulder thoroughly shaken by Philip, Jake can’t help but notice how unfamiliar it all is. Nobody’s ever been this grateful to him for anything before, have they.

Still, Jake might be a shirtless, bloody mess, but he’s still all in one piece. It’s Evan they’re more concerned about, and rightly so.

But that’s quite the leap of logic that Max made just then, come to think of it. He saw the blood, found out that it was Evan’s, and then immediately assumed that Evan had tried to off himself. It’s an awfully _real_ thing for Max to be worried about; why would he say something like that? Has he done that before? Between this and the degree of fear he displayed back when Evan asked to “borrow” some of his moonshine before he and Jake went for a walk, Jake really has to wonder exactly what kind of scenes Max has come home to in the past.

He knows now, far more intimately than ever, just how miserable Evan must be in this place, trapped here against his will with precious little to occupy his thoughts but the constant pain his wounds cause him and his guilt for having been forced to abandon his ailing father. Considering all of that, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched at all. No wonder Philip won’t stop fretting over him.

Well. Maybe that’s another thing that he’s better off not thinking about too deeply.

Quickly changing track, Jake finds it somewhat ironic that there’d be a euphemism for death amongst the Killers. But, then again, it’s not _dying,_ specifically, that it refers to, is it? To “go upstairs” falls neatly in line with their nickname for the Entity, “him upstairs”, and “going upstairs” implies going to the same place where _he_ is. To Evan, Max and Philip, that might be worse than the actual _dying_ part of death. It certainly appears to be that way for Evan.

And yet, he still might be desperate enough to try.

“Oi, come on now, stop that. Not in front of the boy.”

Philip is holding Evan’s face in his hands again, but this time, he’s drawing him in to softly touch their heads together. It’s a much more profound and open gesture of affection than Jake’s ever seen between them before. Evan’s protests are as shallow as they’ve ever been, mind you. He’s leaning into that touch even as he tells Philip to stop, no doubt being grateful for the comfort after the ordeal he’s suffered through.

That “not in front of the boy”, though. Jake hadn’t really considered before now that there might be things that happen in the clearing that he isn’t privy to, but it makes sense, on reflection. Of course there are, there must be. Perhaps Evan and Philip are even closer than he’s realised; they’ve been here together for long enough. Again, it makes sense, All they have in this place is each other.

It feels like a shame to have to use the water they brought home with them from the lake so soon, but this _is_ what they brought it home for, and there’s still plenty of it left after all - well, most - of the blood is washed off of clothes and bodies, and rinsed out of the grass. After that, there’s not much else to do but get Evan upright and help him into the shelter so he can lie down and rest properly for a while. He’s very heavy, but between the three of them, Philip, Max and Jake can just about pick him up and lift him to his feet.

Once Evan is safely inside the shelter, all that’s left to do is give him some proper, decent recovery time, and Max readily volunteers to head down to the campfire when its flickering light next appears amongst the trees. Evan’s in no state to do the work right now, but Max is more than happy to help out and pick up his slack for him.

Philip will go as well, if need be, but for now, he’s sticking around to look after people, just as he always does, and Max, as he departs, enthusiastically announces that he’ll do enough of the work for all three of them. He’d much prefer for Philip to stay put and make sure that Evan is alright.

Jake, too, is finding it difficult to stop worrying about him. The whole incident has left him drained, but even as tired as he is, lying there in his usual spot at the back of the shelter, Evan on his left with his back turned to him and Philip dozing lightly under one of his many sheets on his right, he can’t manage to settle. It’s too tempting to keep listening out for Evan’s breathing; he’s fine, and he remains so for the entire duration of the however-long age that Jake spends lying awake next to him, but christ, that whole mess was easily the scariest thing that he’s has had to deal with for a very, very long time - trials are harrowing and deeply unpleasant, but one can become desensitised to them if he suffers through enough of them. Once you can get past the pain and the death, there’s actually very little at stake in a trial, but there was something at stake back there. That shit was something else entirely.

But, in spite of his anxiety, exhaustion finally gets the better of him in the end.

*

_The clearing is quiet, much moreso than usual. Jake is alone there, and isn’t afraid of it, despite knowing that he should be._

_It doesn’t last for long. Something moving in the woods beyond the treeline has startled the crows, and they scatter out of the treetops and into the sky, calling loudly and harshly as they go. Someone’s coming._

_Before Jake can even see them, however, the stench of blood hits him, revolting and overpowering, turning his stomach, and that’s when he finally appears, staggering, weak and sluggish, into the clearing: Evan, drenched from head to toe in his own blood, so much of it that it coats every inch of him, so much of it that it’s streaming over his skin, down his arms, over his hands and falling from the tips of his fingers in bright, glistening droplets._

*

Jake jolts upright, panting, a clammy sweat on his brow and the back of his neck and his heart threatening to leap into his throat as it pounds wildly under his sternum.

… He’s still in the shelter. He’s still in the shelter, and Evan is still asleep on his left, with his back turned to him, still in one piece. As Jake gingerly places a trembling hand on Evan’s side, he stirs, but doesn’t wake. He’s real. And alive, more importantly. But it’s just as Jake is drawing in a long, deep breath and letting it flow out of him again in a worn out sigh that he turns to his right and sees Philip, very much awake, propped up on one elbow and looking at him with concern.

“I’m…” Jake takes a few more quiet, soothing breaths, and rubs his face. “... I’m okay, man. It was just… just a bad dream, that’s all.”

At least, he _hopes_ that’s all it was. Well, of course that’s all it was. Just a bad dream. He’s traumatised, for fucks sake, of course something like that was bound to happen. It was just a bad dream. Not a vision, not a warning, nothing like that. Just a bad dream. That’s all it was.

Sometimes, Philip is difficult to understand. Sometimes, the lack of speech is too great a barrier, and Jake struggles to grasp what he’s trying to say. But now, as Philip gives a sympathetic tilt of his head and lifts his arm, and his sheet along with it, his wordless offer of comfort is blessedly unambiguous, and Jake, desperate to be comforted, doesn’t hesitate in taking him up on it.

He crawls under Philip’s arm without a second thought, and gratefully curls up there.

Comfort. There was a time, years and years ago, when he took it for granted. Comfort seemed so much like a luxury, something he could afford to do without. Things like food and water were the necessities. You die if you don’t have food or water. Comfort? You won’t die without that. Don’t be so petty. Grow up. Life’s hard.

But _not dying_ isn’t all there is to living, and as he feels Philip squeeze him and nuzzle into his hair, the grim truth of just how pitifully starved for comfort he really is strikes bitterly home. It feels like everything he’s ever wanted, everything he’s ever needed, like falling into a cool, fresh spring after wandering lost in the desert for years. More than merely feeling _wanted,_ Jake feels _loved,_ and it’s intensely intoxicating. Nothing in all of creation could ever convince him to give it up now that he has it; no price or promise could ever make a worthy trade.

Jake buries his face in Philip’s cloak, shuffling in as far underneath him as he can possibly manage.

There are no more nightmares after that.

The next time he wakes, it’s far more gently, and sufficiently so that he thinks better of opening his eyes or moving at all. He’s still tucked safely under Philip’s arm, and he’s more than content to stay there. Evan is awake, though, and it’s his moving to lie just next to Philip that’s woken him, despite his best efforts to be subtle. Jake is happier than he’d likely admit to be all but sandwiched between the two of them as he is, and the decision not to let on that they’ve woken him is an easy one to make.

“He’s gettin’ properly cozy with you, isn’t he.” Evan is trying, and admirably so, to speak quietly enough not to disturb anyone. “You will look after him, won’t you?”

There’s a muted rustle and a slight shift of weight as Philip nods.

“Please, Philip,” Evan murmurs, “You must. You have to look after him. _We_ have to look after him. He.. he saved my fucking life, for christ’s sake.” He sounds as if he’s been in shock over this for some time. “He needn’t have bothered,” he says, “But he did, he did it. He stayed with me. He kept me here, just so I wouldn’t… so I wouldn’t have to suffer.”

Disbelief hangs like a lead weight in Evan’s voice with every word, as if he’s genuinely confused as to why Jake would go to the trouble.

“... I’m not worth all of that, am I?” he asks, with the half-hearted chuckle of someone who’s trying to keep a secret by making a joke of it. “Surely not.”

Jake cannot see but feels Philip reach for Evan, to touch his shoulder - or maybe, he realises, as he hears Evan give a deep, weary sigh, to touch his face. There’s another, greater shift of weight, then, as Evan once more leans into Philip’s hand, and comes near enough that they can touch heads again, though with much more conviction now than when they were out in the open earlier.

“You’ll keep him safe, won’t you?” Evan’s voice is barely more than a soft rumble. “He’s better than we deserve.”

Again, Philip nods. Of course he will.

There’s a pause, after that, of just a heartbeat or two, before Evan ever so delicately puts his arm around Philip and hugs him, and, in doing it, hugs Jake, too. The significance of it isn’t wasted on Jake, either. He’s only ever seen Evan really hug anybody once, and that was back when Max was clinging to him after Sally chewed him out and he’d done it to calm him. It’s nothing short of a surprise, then, when he feels Evan’s mask brush his temple, Evan’s breath on his cheek, and he realises that it’s that same head-touching gesture, the same little token of affection that he and Philip give each other.

Christ, he can be so _gentle_ when he tries, when there’s reason for him to be.

“He keeps doing it, you know,” Evan tells Philip, almost sadly. “He keeps tryin’ to look after me. And Max. And you. He’s too young to be worryin’ about other people like that. It’s not fair. And me of all people,” he mutters. “It’s not -”

And then Philip leans forward, and Evan stops talking, just like that.

Whatever Philip might have done, Evan certainly seems soothed enough by it. He’s quiet for a few moments, before giving another, much smaller sigh as he gathers himself again.

“... Well. You… you’ll look after him, won’t you, Philip.”

_Yes._

“Alright, then. That’s… that’s good.”

There is, after that, another brief pause between them that Jake can’t quite get the measure of, before Evan silently picks himself up and goes back to his usual sleeping spot a few feet away. Philip takes a moment to get comfortable again, and Jake feels himself being held just a little more tightly.

Good god, they love him. It’s the most extraordinary revelation; they love him. They do. They love each other, and they love him.

Everything he’s ever wanted. Everything he’s ever needed. Nothing in all of creation, no price, no promise, could even begin to compare.

_But you don’t belong here._

No, shut up. Shut up, shut up. People belong where they’re loved. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?

_You’re cheating. You don’t belong here._

He didn’t put himself here, he didn’t mean for it to happen. He didn’t ask for any of this. It’s not his fault. It has to be intentional for it to be cheating, doesn’t it? It’s not cheating if he didn’t wind up here on purpose. He’s tried to leave. He’s fulfilled his obligation. He has.

_You’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be with your friends. You’re cheating. You don’t belong here._

Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Jake redoubles his efforts to tuck himself further into Philip’s warm embrace, and he’s rewarded with another tender nudge against his temple for doing it.

No more nightmares.

He’s safe and comfortable and _loved_ here.

No more nightmares.

No more.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Jake:** [puts on skis and hurls himself down the slippery slope at breakneck speed, does a sick backflip]

It’s Philip rolling onto his back and stretching that rouses Jake from his sleep, and his first thought upon waking is that he’s been making far too much of a habit of this. He has, he knows he has; the moment he’d stepped inside the shelter when they’d bedded down earlier, Philip, already settled there, hadn’t even troubled himself to lift his head to look at him before simply raising his arm and offering him a place under it, knowing that Jake would be looking for it and that he’d take it. Jake had proved him right, again, and now, as he sits up and stretches as well, Jake wonders what on earth he’s supposed to do about it. 

That same old guilt is still rearing its ugly head and sitting like a bitter, heavy stone in the pit of his stomach. It occurred to him, a short while ago, that he’s started  _ missing things, _ things that he’d forgotten all about missing, things like hot showers and popcorn and the distant rush of traffic, things he simply hasn’t had the time to remember until now. The stress and trauma of the Entity’s trials ate up all of the space in Jake’s head before, but he hasn’t even had to think about trials for so long, and now those old, mundane wants have found room to start making their way back in. 

Just like Evan, Jake’s memories of his old life had been gradually slipping away, but now, with the benefit of rest and safety, they’re beginning to resurface, and it hurts. Perhaps Evan’s better off for having forgotten so much. 

It feels like too much of a luxury. He’s supposed to have bigger worries than not being able to brush his teeth, and finding himself hankering after petty creature comforts like armchairs and microwaves is tying knots in his guts. Jake used to sneer at those spoiled kids he knew, way back when, who had the gall to ask for an expensive video game console or the latest smartphone from their parents at birthdays or holidays, but now he’s trying his best not to imagine what his fellow Survivors would think of him if they ever found out that he was sitting around getting nostalgic about the scent of fabric conditioner. So fucking  _ spoiled. _ The nerve of it. Terrible. Disgusting. 

It’s wrong. All of this is wrong. Everything about this situation is wrong, and he’s been letting it - no, not just letting it happen, but actively encouraging it, cuddling up to Philip like he does, or babysitting Max so Evan can get some work done or catch a break, or playfighting with Evan himself. Even right now, while he and Philip sit there in the grass, doing absolutely nothing while Max is sat watching Evan work some little way across the clearing, Jake is  _ doing wrong, _ and he knows damned well that he is. 

But what’s the alternative? It might not be perfect, but the situation Jake’s carved out for himself here is too precious to simply throw away. It’s not  _ wrong _ to want things like the comfort and safety and companionship that Philip and his fellows provide; he’s only human, for fucks sake. 

He thought he’d decided all of this already, but the guilt has proven harder to quash than he’d like, and now, as he sits there, very still and very quiet, head bowed and hands clasped in his cross-legged lap, it just won’t stop weighing him down, squeezing at his throat, welling up in his eyes, tugging awkwardly at the corners of his mouth. 

Philip knows something’s wrong. He keeps casting Jake brief, worried glances, keeps checking on him, concerned, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to hurt Jake’s pride by prying. All of that goes flying out of the window, however, the moment he hears Jake sniffle, and in a heartbeat he’s putting his arm around Jake’s shoulders and trying to gather him up into a hug. Despite everything, Jake resists for all of about a quarter of a second before turning and gratefully burying his face in Philip’s cloak, just as he’s done so many times before. 

The other Survivors like to call him “iron willed”, impressed by his talent for staying still and quiet while enduring suffering of the like that would have lesser types writhing and screaming in agony. Some of them, in the past, even asked him how he did it, how he could bear so much and still maintain his composure well enough to remain stealthy. At the time, he’d given them some vague horseshit about mind over matter and staying in control, but the simple truth of it is that spending years upon years bottling up his complaints and emotions for the sake of appeasing others has made it very easy for him. Even now, he’s half choking himself with the effort of pushing down the sobs that are fighting to get themselves heard as he clings to Philip with everything he’s got; it’s harder to simply let the tears come than it is to keep a lid on them.

But damn it, Jake doesn’t  _ want _ to be iron willed anymore. He wants to eat pizza and fall asleep on the couch and hear birds singing at dawn, he wants to loiter in front of the mall and get yelled at for smoking there. He wants to read a book, comb his hair, drop his phone in the toilet by accident. Being iron willed is  _ shit, _ it’s horrible, and finally, as Philip squeezes him and rocks him and hums softly against his temple, trying as best he can to soothe him, those sobs become too irresistible. They’re halting and strangled at first, and they sound and feel more like coughs, but they’re there, they’re happening.

There’s so much that’s wrong right now, but the best Jake can do to articulate it, while Philip cradles his head gently in his hand and strokes his hair, is to mumble, somewhat pathetically, against his shoulder: 

“I don’t wanna go back.”

Speaking out loud is enough to ruin him. After that, there’s no closing the floodgates. 

“Ngh, I don’t - I don’t wanna go back! I don’t wanna go!”

Whether it’s the fear of having to return to his proper place amongst his fellow Survivors and be thrown back into the horror and pain of the Entity’s trials or the guilt that comes with not wanting to return at all that’s causing Jake’s anguish is woefully unclear. It could be either. Maybe it’s both, but it doesn’t matter to Philip, who seems content to simply let Jake cry, and to provide him with a little shelter while he does it, regardless of the reason. 

The same can’t be said of Max, however, who, upon hearing Jake’s loud, ugly sobbing from across the clearing, is immediately distraught. 

“Hey! Hey!” In no time at all, he’s hurrying over to Jake and Philip, almost skidding to a halt on his knees when he gets there. “Hey, d, don’t cry, Man-Cub! It’s okay! Don’t cry! You don’t have to go if you don’t wanna! You can stay here with us as long as you want! It’s okay!” 

“Max!” Which, of course, means that Evan isn’t far behind him. “Don’t tell the boy that!” he snaps, tersely. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep!” 

“Aw, c’mon!” whines Max, looking up at him. “You want him to stay, too! You said so!” 

Evan growls, his jaw audibly beginning to tense.

“Wanting something isn’t enough to make it real or true,  _ Max. _ ” 

“But he can stay, though, right? Tell him he can stay, Evan!” 

“Max, it’s not my decision to make -” 

“Evan, please?” 

_ “Max…!”  _

“...  _ Please, _ Evan?”

God, Jake can’t stop whimpering. He knows Evan well enough by now that he doesn’t expect to be told off for crying, but it’s not enough to chase the shame away, knowing how childish he must seem. Evan’s lack of an immediate answer betrays him, however: it’s the same old fucking scene, isn’t it, Evan trying to argue common sense while Philip and Max look pleadingly up at him, and now Jake too, red eyed, wet cheeked and sniffling. 

Evan sighs. 

“... I’ll see what we can do,” he says, finally, giving in. “I can’t promise anything,” he sternly adds, before Max can do any more than laugh, “So don’t get any ideas.  _ We’ll see. _ That’s all.”

This harsh addendum does little to discourage Max, though, who’s excited enough about it to grab the leg of Evan’s overalls and tug on them in a clumsy attempt to vent his energy. 

“Thank you, Evan! Thank you! Thank you! See, Man-Cub? Evan says you can stay! You don’t gotta go back, it’s okay!” 

When this fails to put the smile back on Jake’s face, however, Max’s own smile begins to fade, and he cocks his head, disappointed. 

“What’s the matter, Man-Cub? Everything’s fine now, Evan said you could stay.” 

“I doubt if that’s all he’s upset about, Maxie.” 

Now Evan kneels too, and, placing his massive hand on Jake’s head, doesn’t quite ruffle his hair.

“Oh.” Max frowns. “I guess he’s had all’a that cry saved up, huh.”

“Yeah. You’ve suffered a lot,” Evan says to Jake, his voice lowering to surprisingly sympathetic murmur. “Haven’t you.” 

Sitting in the middle of this bunch of towering misfits - and not to mention holding onto and being held by one of them while he does it - still carries with it a unique and weighty strangeness, but it’s no longer a threatening one. It doesn’t feel like being surrounded by monsters anymore, and Jake is content to remain exactly where he is. He’s still struggling to quell the sobs that keep rising out of his chest, but it’s getting easier, little by little. 

He  _ has _ suffered a lot. It’s validating to hear someone else say it, and especially someone like Evan, who isn’t in the business of telling comforting mistruths to make people feel better about themselves. If Evan says it, then it must be true. 

Maybe, Jake thinks, just maybe, his tears are justified after all. 

Despite it all, however, he’s still taken well aback when Evan leans in just a little closer, and mutters something so quietly that Jake barely hears it himself.  

“... I’m sorry, Man-Cub. I know I’ve got no small share of blame in it.”

With his hand still resting lightly on Jake’s hair, Evan dips his head towards him, ever so slightly, but he quickly backs off when Jake doesn’t immediately respond in kind, straightening up and moving to pat him on the back instead. 

“Well. You stick with Philip, eh?” he tells him, warmly. “He’ll look after you. Won’t you, Philip.” 

Philip nods, and gives Jake another squeeze. 

“Is there anything we can do to make it better, Man-Cub?” asks Max, with the kind of honest, genuine sincerity that only he could be capable of. “I wanna help make it better.”

Jake gives another loud, wet sniffle, and wipes his nose clumsily on his sleeve before trying his best to explain what’s really wrong. He’s so tired, though, and still so upset about so many things; it’s tough to express his thoughts in a way that would make sense to other people. 

“... I wanna brush my teeth,” he eventually mumbles, weakly. “I want a couch.” 

“Oh, Man-Cub.” Evan sighs with weary regret. “I don’t know how much we can do about that, my lad.” 

“... Evan?” 

“Yes, Max?” 

“What’s a couch?”

“Well, it’s -” Evan pauses. “- It’s...” He looks at Jake. “... You  _ do _ mean a settee, don’t you, Man-Cub? That’s what you’re talking about. A settee.”

Jake squints at him, his eyes still bleary and wet, and sniffles again. 

“... What the fuck is a settee?” 

Again, Evan pauses for thought, perhaps considering just how long he’s been here. It figures that he’d have different words for at least a few things, and, now that he thinks about it, Jake is actually a little surprised that they haven’t encountered a linguistic stumbling block like this before now. 

“It’s a big, plush chair,” Evan explains, shortly. “It’s cushioned. Wide. You can fit a few people on it.”

“Yeah,” croaks Jake. “That’s a couch.” 

“I see. And you want that, do you?” 

“Mm.” Worn out, he rests his head on Philip’s chest, and lets himself be held. “Yeah.” 

“Hm. Well,” says Evan, getting to his feet, “There aren’t many luxuries like that out here, are there.”

“There sure ain’t,” Max remarks, a little bitterly. “That sounds really good.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, it does, doesn’t it. Well, come along, Max.” Evan gives him a nudge as he turns to walk away. “Haven’t you got some work to do? I’m sure there’s something you ought to be gettin’ on with.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I guess so.” 

“Come on, then. Step to.”

Max doesn’t need much more persuasion than that to get up and shuffle off, and Evan only lingers for long enough to glance over his shoulder at Jake and Philip before returning to his own busywork. After that, Philip and Jake are sitting in the grass by themselves again, and really, Jake is glad of it. He’s not sure how much longer he could have endured being the centre of attention like that. 

Maybe that was Evan’s thought, too. 

As embarrassing as it might have been to wind up blubbering in front of everyone like that, Jake reflects, still resting easily in Philip’s embrace, and as stupid as he knows he sounded for not having been able to be more specific in his description of the problem than “I want a couch”, he does have to admit that he feels better. Max was absolutely right, he  _ did  _ have it all saved up, and although the guilt is probably never going to go away, the weight in Jake’s heart does feel ever so slightly less burdensome. 

Not that it means he’ll be the one to move first, mind you, and he’s more than a bit put out when Philip finally sits up and, moving his hands to Jake’s shoulders, gently but firmly peels him off himself. 

“Sorry, man.” Jake forces himself to laugh. “I guess I’ve been here too long, huh?”

The quick motion of Philip’s shoulders looks like a brief shrug, but Jake knows it’s a chuckle, and he understands, too, when Philip shakes his head, and taps his temple. 

_ No. I have an idea. _

“Oh? Yeah?” 

Philip nods, and, taking Jake’s arm, lifts him up as well as he gets to his feet. With a wave of his hand and a tug of Jake’s sleeve, he beckons him towards the treeline. 

_ Come on! _

The trees are almost impossibly tall, but there’s a few around the edge of the clearing with boughs low enough that Philip can reach them, and a handful more that Jake can reach if he stands on Philip’s shoulders. It’s the thinner branches Philip is after, the ones that are an inch or two wide, and once they’ve got a good armful of them, he leads Jake back into the middle of the clearing and starts to make a small fire with the wood they’ve gathered.

When Jake asks him what they’re doing, though, Philip just wags a finger at him. 

_ You’ll see. _

Once the fire’s doing well enough that it can sustain itself, Philip’s off into the shack, looking for things, and Jake wonders how many other friendships he might have missed out on over the years just because he couldn’t be bothered to make the effort to understand somebody. Philip isn’t difficult to understand; all Jake has to do is  _ listen _ to him, it turns out, and understanding him becomes, well, not  _ simple, _ exactly, because Jake has to meet him halfway in a way that isn’t necessary when he’s having conversations with other people, but it’s not the kind of insurmountable obstacle that he would have assumed it to be when he was younger and lazier. It’s not  _ hard _ to meet him halfway. 

Philip’s come back with a few bits and pieces - a cracked bowl, a plate, a large, rounded stone that fits snugly in his palm - and, after the fire’s been going for a while, he’s taking another stick and having a little dig amongst the embers.

“... We’re making charcoal, huh?” 

He nods. 

“How come?” 

Jake watches, his brow creasing, as Philip rubs his front teeth with his finger. 

“... You can brush your teeth with charcoal? Are you serious?” 

There’s another silent chuckle when Philip nods this time. 

“Jesus. Wish I’d known  _ that  _ sooner.” 

As it turns out, all you’ve got to do is grind the stuff up finely enough and mix it with a little water, and you most certainly can clean your teeth with it, and not only that, but if you chew the end of a twig and fray it out a bit, as Philip demonstrates for him, you’ve got yourself something almost like a toothbrush. The charcoal doesn’t taste good, and Jake is reaching for the bowl of water as soon as Philip offers it to rinse his mouth and spit it all out into the grass, but he has to admit, his teeth do feel cleaner than they have in quite a while, and it goes some way towards making him feel just a touch more human, even if he  _ is _ sitting there with his mouth, lips and chin liberally stained with runny, eldritch-looking black.

But then, of course, because Jake and Philip are doing something together, it’s not long until Max wants to get in on it too. He’s likely never brushed his teeth in his entire life, and, without having the luxury of fancy mint flavoured toothpaste as a frame of reference, he doesn’t mind the charcoal much at all.

“Huh!” Max runs his tongue over his gappy, crooked teeth a few times. “That does kinda feel better, don't it.” 

“What the fuck are you all doing?” 

Curiosity has got the better of Evan as well, it would appear, and sufficiently so to draw him away from his work. 

“Hi, Evan!” Max beams at him, his mouth blackened. “We’re brushin’ our teeth!”

There’s another long, heavy pause as Evan stands there, looking over this gaggle of weird, filthy offbeats that passes for his found family, before he finally caves and drops to one knee. 

“Alright, alright. Come on then, pass me a fuckin’ stick.”

“Yeah! Evan!”

Now that they’re all here doing something together, Max is just pleased as punch, and his delight is as infectious as it ever was. Evan’s mask still doesn’t come off, and watching him shove a twig through its freakish grin, too, remains comically fascinating. It’s while Jake’s on his third pass at trying to swill the charcoal out of his mouth that he happens to look up amidst it all and glance at the treeline, though.

Sally’s there. 

She hasn’t said anything, hasn’t done anything; she’s just  _ there, _ watching, and as soon as she notices that Jake has seen her, she promptly up and vanishes, presumably continuing on her way to or from whatever thankless task the Entity has for her. 

That’s not like her, to just keep her mouth shut and leave like that. Jake doesn’t get time to mention it, however, because no sooner has Sally gone, Evan’s straightening up and grumbling at the conspicuous path that’s appeared amongst the trees at the other side of the clearing. It looks as if they’re supposed to be going somewhere, too. 

As soon as Max sees it, he’s scrambling to his feet, still thoroughly caked in charcoal. 

“Aw yeah! I hope we’re goin’ to see Lisa! Hey!” He faces upwards, yelling at the dark, barely-changing sky. “I wanna go see Lisa! Let us go see Lisa!”

The hefty slap that Evan deals to the back of Max’s head comes so quickly that it might have been a reflex. 

“Don’t make demands like that!” he snaps. “We’ll go where we’re fucking sent! Now wash your face, for fucks sake.”

Once the charcoal is all washed away, rinsed off faces and out of mouths, and everyone’s spent a short while asking each other if they’ve got any stains left and reassuring each other that they haven’t, it’s time to go, and it’s only after they’ve started walking that Max thinks to ask  _ why _ they’ve all just been sat around together brushing their teeth. 

“The Man-Cub said he wanted to,” Evan tells him, as they go. “You remember, don’t you?” 

“Well, yeah,” says Max, “But why, though?”

Before he answers the question, Jake wonders exactly  _ how _ he should answer it. If he starts talking about how brushing your teeth is good for you or whatever, he’s shortly going to have to explain  _ why _ it’s good for you, and before he knows it, he’s going to be going into dentistry in general and then they’re going to be talking about it until they’re walking home again. No, fuck that. 

“It’s just something I used to do back home, Maxie.” Yes, a short, vague answer. Good. “I just missed it, that’s all.” 

“Huh. Okay.” Max seems satisfied with that. “... Did it help?”

“Yeah,” Jake replies, unable to keep the smile from crossing his features. “Yeah, it did. It helped a lot.” 

“Oh, that’s good. What else did you used to do back home?”

“Well, I, uh. Uhm.” Jake stammers, trying to work out how to answer  _ that _ without having to explain much. “... Um.”

“You’re not forgettin’ things, are you, Man-Cub?” asks Evan, with the kind of stunted laugh that suggests he might only be half joking. “Come on, now. You’re too young for that.”

“No, no, I just…” Maybe it’d be best to be honest. “... There’s a lot of stuff that I don’t think you’ll understand, Max. A lot of stuff you’ve never done or seen, y’know? I don’t wanna bore you by having to explain everything.” 

Well. Mostly honest. 

“Aw, okay.” 

It’s a shame to see Max’s shoulders droop like that, but it’s for the best. Philip gives him a little pat on the back to salve his disappointment, but his face only really lights up again when Evan, without slowing down or turning around to speak, makes another suggestion. 

“Well, I’m sure he must know a song or two that he can sing for you instead, eh?” 

If he had turned around, he might have seen Jake staring at him. 

_ You son of a bitch. Don’t do this. _

“You haven’t forgotten them all, have you, Man-Cub? You must remember one or two, surely.” 

_ Oh. _

Evan isn’t picking on him. Evan is  _ worried. _ Evan knows, probably better than anyone does, how easy it is to just  _ forget _ things in this place, and now, here he is, trying, not-so-subtly, to spare Jake from the same shitty fate by encouraging him to recall some details of his old life and keep them alive. 

“Come on, boy.” Now Evan looks over his shoulder, his tone growing slightly but palpably more grave at Jake’s silence. “Think. Teach us one of your songs.” 

Well, it’s hardly as if he can argue with Evan, is it, and now Max and Philip both are looking expectantly at him, too. 

God damn it. 

Still, once he’s over the initial hurdle presented by his self consciousness, it’s not so bad. The best songs for when you’re rolling around outside with your friends and making a nuisance of yourself together, Jake remembers from some long-ago time, are the ones you can  _ yell _ as much as you sing them, like Toto’s “Africa” and that one song by Erasure, what the fuck was it called, the one that wasn’t in that unicorn game, something to do with respect. They’re all older songs, Jake notices, and he supposes that it’s because they were the songs he heard when he was a kid, before he had to knuckle down and hit the books and start listening to music that didn’t have any distracting lyrics in it.

He hits upon a favourite with Max soon enough, though. 

_ “Suckin’ too hard on your lollipop! Oh, love’s gonna get’cha down! _ __  
_ Suckin’ too hard on your lollipop! Oh, love’s gonna get’cha down!  _ __  
_ Say love! Say love! Oh, love’s gonna get’cha down! _ _  
_ _ Say love! Say love! Oh, love’s gonna get’cha down!”_

He fucking loves it; by the third time that chorus comes up, he’s already learned the words and started yelling along, and Jake’s more than happy to sing it another two or three times so he can learn the rest. They’re all but dancing through the woods by then, Jake and Max, with Philip clapping along with them, scaring the crows out of the trees, and even if Evan won’t sing too, Jake keeps hearing him chuckle. 

They must be breaking at least a few rules by capering around and making all of this racket, that’s for damn sure, and that alone is reason enough to keep doing it. Until that first time he heard Evan sing, Jake had never once heard music of any kind in the Nightmare, and maybe that’s the way the Entity intends it to be. The Nightmare is  _ supposed  _ to be an unbearably miserable place, and they’re just fucking ruining it by going about like they are, sucking the fear out of it, making it into something it was never meant to be. 

They might as well be marching along with their middle fingers extended as they go. It’s a good feeling.

By the time they’ve reached their destination, Jake has all but yelled himself hoarse, but he’s in better spirits than he’s been for  _ quite a while, _ to say the very least, and maybe that’s what colours his perception when he realises, along with his fellows, that they’re somewhere new. 

The towering neon sign stands out like a glowing obelisk amongst the piles of junk and wrecked cars, flickering and blinking in the low light, and all the four can do, for a few moments, is stare at it. 

It reads “GAS HEAVEN”.

In the past, Jake would have been horrified to find himself in an unfamiliar place; one needs to know where the good hiding places and escape routes are if he’s to avoid being maimed and hung up like a butcher’s prize pig, after all. But now, Jake sees it for something else, something interesting and exciting. There are things to discover here, new things to be explored and played with, and suddenly, it’s no tragedy at all to be somewhere he’s never been before. 

Max, meanwhile, is wholly captivated by that enormous neon sign, gazing at it with eyes like dinnerplates. Of course, he’s never seen anything like it before, has he?

Jake grins at him.

“Is it pretty, Maxie?”

“Yeah!” he exclaims. “It’s like the lights on Lisa’s boat, only really, really big!”

A chuckle ripples around the rest of the group. 

“Only…” Max’s brow creases. “... What’s it for?” 

“Well, it’s to tell people where they are, isn’t it,” Evan tells him. “That’s why it’s so big and bright, so you can’t miss it.” 

“... But we already know where we are. We’re here.” 

“Well,  _ yes, _ Max, but you have to remember, this used to be a real place, didn’t it. Like your old house.” 

“Oh. Oh, yeah. Huh.” 

There is, as ever, another pause as Max mulls over this fascinating new revelation. 

“... But how’s it do that?” 

“What?” 

“How’s it tell people where they are?”

“Well, it’s got writing on it, Maxie.” 

“... What’s ‘writing’?”

Now that he thinks about it, it seems pretty obvious to Jake that Max wouldn’t be able to read. Nobody will have troubled themselves to teach him when he was a kid, and there’s virtually nothing to read at all in the Nightmare. In fact, this might be the first time that Jake’s seen any real writing since he got here. 

“... Hm.”

That’s got Evan stumped. There’s no quick, easy way to explain what writing is. 

… Or is there? After a little thought, Jake remembers that he’s heard that question before, and, more importantly, he remembers the answer, too. 

“Writing is… words that stay,” he tells Max, feeling more than a little proud of himself for having thought of it. 

“Oh!” Evan sounds genuinely impressed. “That’s a nice way of putting it.” 

“But I don’t get it,” says Max, crestfallen. “How come’s you all get it and I don’t?” 

“It’s not your fault,” Evan tells him. “Nobody taught you how to read, did they. You can’t expect yourself to know things that you’ve never been taught.” 

Max looks at him. 

“... Can you teach me?” 

With a sigh, Evan casts a tired glance at Jake and Philip. 

“You two get on,” he says, wearily. “I think we’re gonna be here for a bit.”

It’s a cue that Philip seems very happy to take, catching Jake’s wrist in his hand and eagerly urging him to follow him towards the sign, or, more specifically, the small building that sits just next to it. It’s a gas station, or rather, the remains of one, every bit as derelict as anything else in the Nightmare - although, as they walk under its roof together towards the door, there’s still the dull tinkle of a bell to announce them, however feeble and pathetic it might be.

No sooner have they set foot inside, though, Philip’s looking around, almost like he’s searching for something. There must be something about this place, something more than the novelty of it, surely. 

“What’s up, man?” Jake, walking between rows of shelves strewn with trash, follows him to the little counter at the station’s far end. “Is there something here?” 

Philip soon explains: he moves, quite deliberately, to stand behind the counter, and proudly points at his own chest. 

“... You worked here?” 

He nods.

“Huh! Cool.”

That’s what Evan said, isn’t it? That all of these places were real, once. And it’s true, in fact, when Jake thinks about it; after all, he already knew that the Entity’s cooked up a shitty replica of the street Myers’ sister used to live on, because that’s where Myers was doing murders, that’s where he caught the Entity’s attention. 

So, this is Philip’s place, then. Interesting.

“So what did you do here, man?” 

It’s a question that Philip is all too ready to answer, and he’s digging around in the back, then, until he reappears - and produces a wrench, twirling it expertly in his hand. 

“You were a mechanic? Seriously?” 

Philip nods vigorously. 

“Holy shit, that’s the coolest! Does anybody else know? I bet you and Max would have heaps to talk about!”

Nobody else knows, it turns out, and when Jake asks why, Philip just shrugs. It’s never come up before.

“Man, you’ve gotta tell ‘em! Max is gonna be over the damn moon!” 

Seeing Philip bashfully rub the back of his neck, Jake tries not to laugh out loud. To think that he could love Philip any more than he already did. Wow.

The gas station’s little shop is good fun to poke around in. There’s all kinds of stuff to get stuck into, like the magazine rack and its fake magazines with single-colour covers and pages that are either blank or full of gibberish, and there are even a few bottles and cans left lying around in the fridges at the back, although they are, Jake is disappointed to discover, tragically empty. It seems they don’t have an alternative to Max’s gut-rotting moonshine just yet. 

The Entity’s made a decent effort with this place, Jake reflects, as Philip leads him into the workshop where, as he explains, he used to fix the cars. It can’t quite manage the fine details like logos on beer cans or figure out what writing is supposed to look like when there’s more than a little of it, but it’s done its best with what it knows - or rather, with what it’s managed to glean from what  _ Philip _ knows. 

Philip must remember his old workplace pretty clearly for the Entity to have gathered all of these particulars and illustrated them like this, and, watching him, Jake gets the impression that he was happy here. 

But that’s not how the Nightmare works, is it, and that’s not why Killers wind up on their side of the fence. 

Something  _ happened _ here. 

Something happened, something terrible, and Philip was at the centre of it. 

Christ, just the thought of it makes Jake intensely anxious, and he wonders if he can manage to just forget about it, to just let things carry on as they are. He loves Philip, he really does, and he’s afraid, deeply, terribly afraid, that if he finds out what happened here, what Philip  _ did _ here, that all of that is going to be ruined. He’s still not finished wrestling with himself over what he’s learned about Evan, for fucks sake. There’s no way that he wants to go through all of that with Philip, too. 

But Philip’s so gentle and quiet, though. Philip doesn’t  _ want _ to hurt anybody. Surely, anything that Jake finds out here can’t be as bad as what Evan did, can it? That’s what he wants to believe.

That’s the thing, though, isn’t it. What Jake wants to believe doesn’t even come into it. Philip is a person, and it’s actually kind of gross and skeevy, when Jake is really honest with himself, to just go ahead and believe whatever he wants about him for the sake of his own comfort. It’s not  _ Philip _ he cares for, then, is it, if he’s just making shit up to please himself, so much as the safe, cuddly image of Philip he’s curated in his mind’s eye. 

It’d be doing a disservice to him, and Jake can’t, in good conscience, do that to him if he’s going to keep calling Philip his friend. 

_ Time to bite the bullet, ‘Man-Cub’.  _

“... H, hey, Philip?” 

At the mention of his name, Philip turns around from where he’s been digging in a locker, trying to find his old tools, and gives a questioning cock of his head. 

Fucking hell, he’s having such a good time. Is it really fair to ruin it? Jake supposes that he’s never going to forgive himself if he doesn’t ask, though. There’s really nothing else for it. 

“Philip, what happened here?”

And, just like that, Jake can  _ see _ the joy just drain out of him. His shoulders droop, his hands drop, and he stands very, very still, knowing precisely what Jake is asking, and why. Jake is no happier about it than he is; his worry is painted all over his face, but he wants to know the truth, damn it, and there’s no other way to get it but straight from the horse’s mouth. 

Or rather, straight from the horse’s meticulous hand gestures and signing, anyway. 

Silence hangs in the dilapidated workshop like a thick, heavy fog until, after what feels like a long while, Philip gives the quietest, softest sigh, and beckons Jake to follow him back into the gas station. There, he directs Jake to take a seat on the counter, putting him almost at Philip’s eye level, and takes a moment or two more to gather his thoughts. 

Then, he stands up straight, and, very slowly and very deliberately, taps himself on the chest, and then the counter, and Jake thinks he understands. 

_ I come here. _

He presses his palms together, and slowly draws them apart. 

_ Long. Long way.  _

“... Did you come here to work?” 

He nods.

“What did you do back home? Were you a mechanic there?” 

Philip shakes his head, and, after shifting uncomfortably, makes a vague, back-and-forth gesture with his level palm. 

“Oh.” Jake grins. “You were kinda dodgy, huh?” 

It’s too hard not to laugh as Philip twiddles his thumbs and casts a theatrically innocent glance around the room. 

_ Maybe. _

“Hee hee. Were you dodgy here, too?” 

This time, he shakes his head much more emphatically. 

_ Certainly not! _

Then, he once again purposefully taps himself on the chest, and crosses his heart, holding his head high. 

_ I came here to be good. _

“... Really? You wanted to get on the straight and narrow?” 

_ Yes. _

“And did you?” 

_ Yes! _

“Good job, man.” 

At that, Philip puffs out his chest, just a little. He was proud of himself for it, evidently.

“So what did you do here?” 

Now then, that’s going to take a little more explanation, isn’t it, and Philip is soon looking around for a way to illustrate what he means to say. After a brief scan of the station, he’s picked up one of the many empty cans that lie strewn around the place, and he holds it up for Jake to see.

Before he does anything, however, Philip fixes Jake with a hard stare. 

_ Are you paying attention? _

“It’s okay, man. I’m watching, I’m watching.” 

This is going to be a bit of a reach, evidently, and Philip wants to make sure that Jake gets the gist of what he’s trying to convey. 

Although he can’t speak, Philip can growl, and, running the can back and forth along the counter a few times, he does so, doing his best to mimic the revving of a car’s engine. 

“Haha!” Jake grins. “Okay, okay, I get it, it’s a car. You fixed the cars, right?” 

_ And, _ Philip tells him, raising a finger,  _ That’s not all. _

There’s a very satisfying noise as he demonstrates, effortlessly crushing the can flat between his palms. 

“And you crushed ‘em too, huh?” 

_ Yes! _

“Haha, I guess you can’t fix ‘em all.”

He laughs, and Jake regrets what he’s going to have to ask next. 

“... So…” His smile fades. “... What happened?”

At that, the mirth vanishes from Philip’s face and posture too, and, after a moment, he’s trying again to explain. In a very concise, deliberate manner, he straightens his back, and pretends to straighten a tie, drawing his hand down his chest from his throat. There’s only one person who wears a tie in a mechanic’s shop. 

“... Your boss?” 

_ Yes. _

Then there’s another can - another car - except this time, he’s taking a pebble, and dropping it inside through the open top. It rattles inside as it hits the bottom, and Jake tries to understand. 

“Your boss… put something  _ in _ the cars?” 

_ Yes. _

“What… what was it?” 

The silence that follows is long and uncomfortable, and Philip won’t look Jake in the eye, shifting uneasily where he stands. 

There’s only one thing it could be, really, isn’t there? 

“Was… was your boss putting  _ people _ in the cars?” 

Now Philip finally looks at him, and he’s a lot less enthusiastic about it when he slowly crushes that second can with a painful, agonising crunch.

Jake swallows.  _ Now  _ he’s starting to get it,  _ now  _ he’s starting to see why Philip is here. 

“Did you…  _ know _ he was putting people in the cars?” he asks, quietly. 

Philip hangs his head, ashamed, and barely moves enough to answer him.

_ No. _

“Was there a lot of them?” 

_ Yes. _

“But… I guess you found out, huh?” 

_ Yes. _

“What did you do?” 

_ My heart hurt, _ Philip explains, clutching sadly at his chest.  _ My boss, I asked why. He said, ‘Shut up, do more.’ _

“You didn’t wanna do it, did you.”

_ No. But I was angry, so angry. _

This time, when Philip begins to clutch and claw at his head, Jake can grasp what he’s trying to say. 

_ It made my head hurt. I was so afraid, so angry, that I couldn’t see. _

Every inch of him is tense and rigid; recalling it all is upsetting and painful for him, it seems, and Jake is all too willing to be patient while Philip gathers himself enough to tell him how it happened. 

_ I heard, in my head, ‘Kill him! Kill him!’  _ he goes on, furiously miming the act of cutting his own throat.  _ So loud! So loud! My head hurt! I was so angry, it made me blind. _

“... Did you kill your boss?” 

_ Yes, _ Philip reluctantly answers.  _ I killed him. I crushed him. Like the cars. _

Another long, unpleasant stretch of quiet ensues, and, after a while, Philip forces himself to continue. 

_ … Him upstairs. He came and said, ‘Look, you have killed him. You have killed all of those people. You are bad, you are a killer. You will kill for me now.’ I said no, I didn’t want to kill, didn’t mean to, but he told me, ‘You killed him, you did that. You are bad. You are a killer.’  _

He can’t look at Jake at all, now. 

_ I am bad, _ he says, tapping himself on the chest and giving a thumbs down.  _ He is right. I am here because of that. _

Well. That certainly explains plenty. It’s much clearer, now, why Philip is such a reluctant Killer; he never wanted to kill anybody, and still doesn’t want to, and it seems pretty plain to Jake that the Entity forced its way into Philip’s head during that one moment of grief-stricken madness and pushed him over the edge so that it could wave the murder of Philip’s boss around as “proof” that he was what it wanted him to be. It worked well enough. After all, Philip is still hung with guilt over it now. 

The poor bastard. It’s gaslighting at its finest, and the Entity has used it to great effect to convince Philip that he deserves to be where he is. It drove him mad, pushed him into killing a man and then told him that everything he’d done was of his own terrible, wicked free will. 

It’s more than Jake can stand, and, hopping down from his seat on the counter, he’s quick to offer Philip some reassurance. 

“Hey. Hey. C’mon, man. It wasn’t your fault.” He reaches for Philip’s hand. “He made you do it, him upstairs. You didn’t wanna kill that guy.”

_ I am bad!  _ Philip fiercely retorts, pulling away from him.  _ I killed him! I am bad! _

“No you’re not!” argues Jake, moving after him. “You told me you heard him tell you to do it! That’s what you said, you said you heard it! It was  _ him, _ Philip! He told you to do it! He made you kill that asshole so he’d have something to get you with! You never wanted to kill anybody, did you?” 

He shakes his head vehemently. 

_ No! Never!  _

“No! Exactly! You’re not bad, Philip, okay? You’re  _ good, _ I can see that, everybody can see that, okay? You’re  _ good, _ Philip. You’re good.” 

For a good while after he’s said it, Philip just stares at him, not knowing how to react, and Jake lets him take his time. If he’s really spent all this time thinking that his being here is out of his own evildoing, it’s got to be a hell of a shock to hear someone tell him differently. 

The last time Philip grabbed Jake and hugged him, it came as enough of a shock to be scary, but this time, there’s nothing frightening about it at all, and Jake is quick to throw his arms around Philip in turn and hug him back for all he’s worth. 

“It’s okay, man. It’s okay. You’re good. You’re good, and we all love you. It’s okay.” 

Philip is good. Thank fuck, Philip is good, and Jake can admit, at least inwardly, that he’s clinging to him to comfort himself just as much. The relief is greater than he has any words for.

_ Thank fuck. _

And, although it’s sometimes tough to understand what Philip has to say, he is wholly unambiguous in his affection, dropping to one knee to gently cup Jake’s face in his hands and touch their foreheads together. Jake returns the gesture as best he can, closing his eyes and leaning into it as he does so, Philip’s skin rough and cool under his palms. 

It’s hard not to feel at least a little honoured by it; it’s a Philip Kiss, it’s a big deal. 

“I’m sorry you’ve wound up here, man.” Jake tells him, quietly. “It’s not your fault.” 

To his surprise, though, Philip just shakes his head, and gives an easy shrug. 

_ It’s not so bad. _

Jake stares at him in disbelief. 

“You… you don’t mind?” 

_ Nah. _

And he traces, then, on his face, a wide, crooked grin, and Jake smiles. 

“Yeah, I guess it’s okay with Evan here, isn’t it.” 

_ And Max, too, _ Philip adds, covering one side of his face with his hand. 

“You love those guys, don’t you.” 

_ Yes. _

When he first came here, Philip explains, he was miserable, afraid, and alone, and having to do the work, too, only made it worse. 

_ It made me want to die, _ he tells Jake, motioning the cutting of his own wrist.  _ I was sad all the time. But Evan said, ‘You are weak, I am strong! I will do your work, to protect us both from him upstairs.’ I am very, very grateful, _ he says, with clasped hands.  _ So very, very grateful. _

They’re sat on the floor together by then, leaning back against the counter, and Jake is grateful, too. Finally,  _ finally, _ there’s some respite from the guilt that’s been plaguing him for so long, and that weight in his chest feels ever so slightly lighter. 

Maybe Philip can find some escape from his own guilt now, too. 

_ Then Max came,  _ he goes on,  _ And now we are all together. We protect each other. We love each other. _

Seeing him place his hands over his heart so earnestly is endearing enough that Jake can’t keep from laughing, but it’s when Philip puts his arm around his shoulders and pulls him into another hug, really squeezes him, that that laughter bubbles out of him so much more loudly. 

_ And you, too, _ Philip says, tapping him on the chest. 

“Aw, oh gee, man.” 

He can feel his face getting hot; when was the last time anyone said they loved him? Once again, there’s some strange sensation squeezing at Jake’s throat, welling up in his eyes, tugging awkwardly at the corners of his mouth, but thank goodness it’s something other than guilt, and this time, when Jake sniffles, he can’t throw himself into Philip’s arms quickly enough. 

“I love you, too.” His voice is muffled in Philip’s cloak as he all but shoves his face into it. “I love you, too.”

And he doesn’t even have to feel bad for doing it. What a miracle. Philip nuzzles into his hair, as he’s become wont to do of late, and Jake just eats it up, now that he knows he can do so freely, shuffling right up to Philip, just about as close as he can get, almost climbing into his lap, hiding gratefully in his embrace. 

He’d have to be crazy to walk away from this. He’d have to be stupid. 

It’s wonderful to just stay there for a while, to find a little real, genuine peace for a change. Jake’s not sure how long they sit there for, but he isn’t counting. It doesn’t matter. At least for now, the weird timelessness of the Nightmare is a blessing rather than a curse. 

But of course, it can’t last. 

The blissful quiet is thoroughly shattered by the distant sound of Max yelling angrily at someone, too far away to hear what he’s actually saying, but nearby enough for there to be no doubt that there’s trouble of some kind. Philip and Jake pick themselves up and go outside, just in time to hear an almighty crash and Evan’s furious roar of “DON’T YOU  _ DARE  _ RAISE YOUR HAND TO ME!” 

That’s all Philip needs to hear, and in a heartbeat he’s rushing after the commotion. Jake can’t hope to keep up with him, but he sprints after him all the same, hoping to help him avert whatever disaster might be blowing up in their midst. It takes him a few moments to catch up, but when he does, Philip has already put himself between Max and Evan. 

“It’s your fault I’m so fuckin’ stupid!” Max yells at Evan, bloody-nosed, from over Philip’s shoulder. “You never wanna teach me a damn thing!” 

“I never said I didn’t want to!” Evan angrily retorts. “I said I don’t have time! You can’t just sit down and learn to read in an hour, Max!” 

“You won’t even  _ try! _ You never do! You never tell me nothin’! I hate you!” 

Oh dear. It would appear that Max is tired of people fobbing him off instead of explaining things to him when he asks about them, and being told that he’s not going to be taught how to read, either, has become the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Evan isn’t reacting well to it. 

“Oh, for fucks  _ sake, _ Max! Don’t be so fucking melodramatic!” 

“FUCK YOU!” 

“I beg your  _ fucking  _ pardon!?”

However, as Evan moves for Max, Philip takes a step towards him, meeting him before he can get there and looking him dead in the eye. Evan stops dead in his tracks, and although he makes an attempt at staring Philip down, it’s halfhearted at best. He huffs and grumbles, but it doesn’t amount to much, and he ultimately gives in, turning his head to face away and break that uncomfortable eye contact.

Jake’s heard many times that one is supposed to count to ten before losing his temper, and, although it might be a little late, that’s Philip’s game, forcing Evan to stop and think about what he’s doing instead of getting wound up and flying off the handle.

It seems like a very effective tactic, just like always, and, with Evan neutralised - albeit grudgingly so - Philip can now turn his attention to Max, who is still scowling indignantly. Still, now that he’s not being bellowed at anymore, he, too, is beginning to calm somewhat, and willingly accepts the hug that Philip offers him. Once he’s a little more settled, Philip, with one arm still around his shoulders, makes a gentle beckoning motion with his other hand. 

_ Come on. Tell me. _

“... I just said I wanted to get them words that stay like everybody else can,” Maxie explains, sadly. “But Evan said he didn’t wanna -” 

“Look, I never said -”

Evan’s interruption is cut abruptly short when Philip turns and glares at him. He huffs some more and irritably crosses his arms, but says no more; Max is speaking now, and Evan will just have to wait his turn. 

“... He said he didn’t wanna ‘cuz he ain’t got time,” Max goes on. “But I don’t wanna be stupid!” he cries. “I don’t want Sally to be right about me!”

“She’s  _ not  _ right about you.” Jake’s seen enough. “Sally’s an asshat,” he tells Max, coming over to join Philip. “And you’re  _ not _ stupid. Not knowing things isn’t the same as being stupid, okay? Hell, I’ll help you learn to read, I’ve got time.”

“That’d be good of you, Man-Cub.” Now that he’s been listening for a while, actually  _ listening, _ instead of merely listening in order to argue back, Evan, though weary, sounds far more even-tempered. “I think we’d all appreciate that.” 

Max, however, is still in a combative mood. 

“Fuck you,” he mutters, pouting at Evan. “You only like the Man-Cub ‘cuz he does stuff for you.” 

At that, both Evan and Philip turn and stare at him, appalled, and Max dips his head, wiping his nose messily on the back of his wrist to give himself an excuse to look away from them. 

“Now you’re just planting poison,” Evan snaps, angrily. “You know damned well that’s not true! You take that back this instant!”

“Fuck you!” Max snaps right back at him. “You ain’t got time for nothin’! Whenever I need you, you’ve always gotta go somewhere or do somethin’, and when you ain’t got no work to do, you just come home and go to sleep!” 

Evidently, Jake isn’t the only one who’s been saving up all of his troubles, and as Max yells and rants, Philip just stands there with him, still with that arm around his shoulders, and watches Evan to make sure that he keeps his mouth shut and lets Max get it out, makes sure that he listens. 

“You never stick around to tell me stuff, but then when I ask, you make out like I’m a pain in the ass for bein’ so stupid! How’m I s’posed to get to know stuff if you won’t teach me!? That’s why Sally says I’m a de…  _ degenerate, _ it’s your fault! It’s your fault I’m stupid! I can’t do none’a the stuff that everybody can do ‘n’ you won’t teach me!”

He sniffs loudly, only for it to make him cough for all the blood in his nose. 

“Ngh. I don’t wanna be stupid,” he mumbles, hanging his head. “I wanna be smart, like you and Philip ‘n’ the Man-Cub.”

It’s only when Max is finished that Philip finally cocks his head at Evan, and makes an open-palmed,  _ ‘Well, then?’ _ gesture towards him. Evan, though, perhaps wisely, doesn’t say anything straight away, instead simply standing there for a few moments, hands on his hips, and sighing as he tries to marshal his thoughts. 

“Oh, Maxie.” He gives another deep, wearied sigh. “You just don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand! I’m listenin’!” 

“Alright, alright, look.” Doing his very best to be patient, Evan raises his hands. “Listen. Maxie. The work’s gotta be done, boy. I can’t just  _ not do the work, _ you know that.” 

“I know,” says Max. “But why can’t things be like they were before Myers showed up? It was okay back then. You don’t gotta keep up with him, y’know. We all know you’re better that he is.”

“It’s not about that, though, is it, Maxie.” 

“Then what is it about?” 

As Jake watches Evan take a deep breath and cast a long, searching glance skywards, he’s pretty sure he can guess just how hard Evan must be fighting not to just tell Max, yet again, that he doesn’t understand, and refuse to explain any further. But this isn’t an easy thing to explain, and Jake doubts that he’ll be eager to tell Max the whole, horrifying truth, even now. 

“... If the work doesn’t get done often enough or well enough,” Evan explains, quite slowly, “Then him upstairs will get upset. We all know that, don’t we.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well,” he goes on, “I don’t want him thinkin’ that he doesn’t need any of us, now that he’s got Myers. If we don’t all pull our weight - and then some - he might decide that we don’t need to be here anymore, and christ knows what’ll happen to us then. I just want to keep us all safe, Max,” he says, almost pleadingly. “I know it’s not nice, it’s not nice for me, either, but I don’t want to risk anything happening to you or Philip or any of us. I’m just trying to keep him off our backs, that’s all.” 

“.. Why couldn’t you just say that in the first place?” asks Max, frowning. “That wasn’t hard to get.” 

“I know, Maxie, I know. I wasn’t worried that you wouldn’t get it, I just…” He gives another big, heavy sigh. “... You’ve always seemed to enjoy the work, Max. I don’t want to spoil it for you by making it into something scary. I don’t… I don’t want you to end up like me.” 

That’s an understatement, and perhaps Maxie will miss the underlying truth of it, but it is, at least, an explanation. 

Max, though, looks at him, his brow creasing. 

“... Is it scary for you?”

“... Sometimes,” Evan admits, reluctantly. “Yeah.”

“... Would it be less scary if I did more?” 

“Oh, Maxie, you don’t have to -” 

“- I wanna help. If it’ll help for me to do more, then I’ll do more.” 

“... Thank you, Max. Look, I… I’m sorry I hit you, alright? I shouldn’t have done it.” 

“It’s okay.” Max shrugs. “I hit you first.” 

“I know you did,” says Evan, “I know. But I’m supposed to be the one who knows better, aren’t I. I’m sorry.”

“Okay. But…” Max looks at him with uncertainty. “... You  _ will _ tell me about stuff now, won’t you?” 

“Christ.” Once again, Evan’s gaze drifts wildly. “... Max, it’s not as simple as that. There are some things that I just  _ can’t _ explain to you, no matter how much I might want to.” 

“Why!?” Philip gives Max a squeeze to soothe him as he protests. “Why can’t you!? That’s not fair!” 

“It’s  _ not  _ fair! I know!” Evan hastily endeavors to lower his voice. “I know,” he says, again, much more quietly. “And it’s not your fault, I want to make sure you understand that. But there’s so much that you’ve never seen and that you’re never going to see, living here, that it makes explaining… well, almost anything with roots outside of this rotten place almost impossible. I mean…” 

He pauses for a moment to think, to try to work out how he’s going to explain it in a way that Max will be able to grasp. 

“... Imagine that you had to explain  _ colours _ to someone who can’t see, Max. How would you do that? How would you explain  _ colours _ to someone who had never seen them and was never going to see them?” 

“Well, I…” Max has to wrestle with that one for a while. “... Yeah,” he replies, eventually. “Yeah, that would be pretty tough, wouldn’t it.” 

“It would, Max. And that’s why I can’t always explain things to you, it’s stuff you’ve never had a chance to see or get to grips with. Maybe if those cunts hadn’t kept you shut away in that fucking box for all those years, if they’d let you  _ live  _ and  _ see things, _ it would be different, but they didn’t, did they.” 

“No.” Max can only look at the floor, then. “No, they fuckin’ didn’t.” 

“And it’s not like him upstairs gives us much to see or do either, is it. It’s not your fault, Maxie. It isn’t. But there’s just so much that I’d never be able to make you understand. But I’ll do my best, when I can. That much I can promise you.” 

Hearing that, he looks a little more hopeful, his expression brightening somewhat as he lifts his head.

“... Y’mean you’ll try? You won’t just tell me not to ask all the time?” 

“Yes, Maxie.” Evan tells him, patiently. “I’ll try.” 

“You promise?” asks Max. “You gotta promise!” 

“I promise, Max,” he says, again. “I promise I’ll try. But if I tell you that I can’t explain,” he adds, “You have to take my word for it, alright? Do we have an agreement?” 

Max nods. 

“Yeah!” 

“Good.”

No sooner have they said it, Philip is reaching for Evan, beckoning him over and, at the same time, encouraging Max towards him so they can hug and make up. And just like that, everybody’s friends again, like the fight never happened at all. 

Thank goodness for Philip. They really would be up shit creek without him, wouldn’t they?

Before Jake can reflect on it for too long, though, he’s being pulled into that hug too, and, mercifully, Max is fairly gentle about doing it. Jake’s happy to be there; admittedly, the prior exchange of blows was a little jarring, even if Jake only managed to see the aftermath of it, but considering who these people are and what they do for a living, it’s fair to say that violence occasionally comes part and parcel with being here. It’s probably best not to take it too personally. After all, nobody’s too much worse for wear for it - although it might have been a different story if Philip hadn’t been there to diffuse the situation so quickly and expertly. 

With the crisis averted, Philip remembers, now, that Evan and Max haven’t seen the shop yet, and he’s urging them, then, with great excitement, to come along and see it. He tells them the same as he told Jake, that he used to work here, and sure enough, Max is _absolutely_ over the moon to hear that Philip used to be a mechanic. 

“Why didn’t you say so!?”

At that, Evan just laughs, and joins Jake in emptying the magazine rack of its shitty, fake magazines so they’ll have something to write on when they get home. 

Still, conspicuously absent is the rest of the story, the part about Philip’s boss, the cars, and the people in them, and Jake supposes he can appreciate the omission. Everybody’s having such a good time, it’d be a shame to spoil it. That, and telling the story once took enough of a toll on poor Philip, and Jake doubts that he’d be too eager to go through it all again, which is to say nothing of the absolute ballache it must be for him to explain anything to anyone at the best of times. It was certainly enough of an effort for him to make Jake understand what had happened. 

Max loves the bell outside, though. He’s still playing with it when it’s time for them to leave, and he’s reluctant to go until Evan reminds him that their Man-Cub is going to teach him to read when they get back. That’s enough to coax him away, easily, and there’s more raucous yell-singing as they make their way back through the woods and back, finally, to the clearing. 

The Entity, though, is nothing if not a cruel taskmaster, and no sooner have they got there, the campfire’s light appears between the distant trees, calling them away again. Evan immediately resigns himself to it, but before he can leave, Max catches him by the arm. 

“I’ll go!” he tells him, grinning. “I said I’d do more, so you stay, and I’ll go this time.” 

It doesn’t matter that Jake can’t see Evan’s face. When he thanks Max for his help and graciously accepts it, he sounds just about as tired as he ever did, but there’s just the barest hint of a smile in his voice. He’s immensely grateful, and that gratitude only becomes more obvious as he ducks inside the shelter with Jake and Philip and, with great relief, lies down heavily there to get some rest.

Jake settles there too, though he’s waiting for Philip before he even realises he’s doing it. But, both he and Evan notice how unlike himself Philip seems when he throws himself down onto the hay. He does enough to roll onto his side and turn his back on Evan, and then to bring Jake in under his arm, but no more, and it’s enough to get Evan’s attention. 

“... Philip?”

He doesn’t budge, and Evan, concerned, heaves himself upright. 

“Philip. What’s the matter? You’re being quiet.”

Now Philip finally does move, although it’s only enough to lift his head and look incredulously over his shoulder at him.

“Alright, look,” says Evan, “You know what I mean. I’m sorry I made such a scene earlier. I lost my temper, I shouldn’t have done it. You always get caught in the middle of these things because of me.”

When Philip just shakes his head and turns away again, though, Evan only hefts himself nearer.

“What? That’s not it? Come on, tell me. Please.”

He’s tired. Philip is tired, and barely has the energy to squeeze Jake as he settles himself again, let alone start waving his hands around to make Evan understand anything he might have to say. After everything he’s seen during their little outing, though, Jake thinks he’s got a decent idea of what might be eating at him. 

“... Philip?” He nudges Philip’s chin with his nose. “Do you still feel bad about what you told me? Is that what it is?” 

It’s a weary, reluctant nod, but it’s a nod nonetheless. 

_ Yes. _

“Do you want me to tell Evan what you told me?” 

_ … Yes. _ He squeezes him again.  _ Please. _

“Okay, man. I’ll tell him. You let me know if I fuck anything up, okay?” 

“... Tell me what?” asks Evan, leaning in. “Did something happen?”

“Well…” Jake sits up too, as Philip flops onto his back, rubbing his face. “... Kinda, yeah.” 

So that’s what Jake does. He explains, at length, everything that Philip told him while they were at the shop, about why he’d settled there, what he used to do, how much he’d loved it. He tells Evan about Philip’s old boss, about the cars, the people, the murders - and the Entity’s manipulation, too. 

As it turns out, Evan’s never heard the story before. Not surprising, really, given the circumstances, but he listens closely, saying nothing even after Jake finishes the story. And all Philip does, throughout, is lie there on his back, and stare at the ceiling of the shelter, no doubt still just as ashamed of himself as he was back at the shop.

“... So  _ that’s _ how you got here.” Evan mutters, finally. “Should’ve guessed. You poor sod.” 

At last, Philip manages to turn his head to look at him again, exhausted and miserable. 

“It’s not his fault,” Jake says. “Is it.” 

“No, it isn’t,” Evan agrees. “It certainly fucking isn’t. It’s him upstairs, that bastard. And I thought he couldn’t stoop any lower… Look, Philip. Come here. C’mon.”

It takes a little encouragement for Philip to get up and move, but once Evan’s got an arm around him, Philip is more than happy to lean on him and accept a little reassurance. Although, it’s only a moment or two before he’s reaching for Jake. 

“Oh.” Evan chuckles. “You want your Man-Cub as well, do you? Right, come on,” he says, waving Jake over. “You as well.” 

So, Jake does as he’s asked, once again shuffling over to Philip’s side, and straight away, things don’t seem so bad anymore. With Jake leaning on Philip and Philip leaning gratefully on Evan, they can all finally get some little respite, as shortlived as it is - it feels like far too soon when Evan does, inevitably, have to get up and trudge down to the campfire himself. 

They should have known that  _ him upstairs _ wouldn’t let them keep him for long. 

That’s just a part of life here, though, isn’t it, and Philip and Jake shortly rearrange themselves back into their usual sleeping spot, Philip on his side, and Jake under Philip’s arm, tucked right up under his chin. Hopefully, some decent sleep will put Philip back to rights with himself. 

Philip; dear, gentle, wonderful Philip. He’s  _ good. _

_ Thank fuck, he’s good. _

The loud, heavy thud that wakes them both some time later is closeby enough to warrant investigation, and with Philip with him, Jake is brave enough to stick his head out of the shelter and take a look. What he sees, though - what they both see - is miles beyond anything that he might have expected. 

There, standing by the shack, back straight, arms folded and head held proudly high, is Evan, and, just to his side, is the most hideous couch Jake has ever set eyes on in his entire life. The floral pattern that covers it from end to end is faded and stained in places but still offensively ghastly, but christ, it’s a  _ couch, _ big and plush and high-backed, and Jake, already laughing, almost flies out of the shelter’s doorway to sprint across the clearing and hurl himself onto it. 

Evan, watching him, laughs too. 

“It’s fuckin’ horrible, isn’t it,” he remarks, the grin hanging heavily in his voice. 

“It is!”Jake guffaws, still rolling around all over the hideous thing, “But I love it!” 

“Good,” says Evan, struggling to speak through his own mirth. “I’m glad. Does that make it better, Man-Cub?”

“Yes! Thank you!” 

“You’re welcome.”

By now, Philip has come over to take a better look too, but Jake only barely notices. 

Philip is good, it’s true, but, you know, maybe Evan isn’t so bad, either. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For most people who still live with their parents, being left home alone and unsupervised is a good time.
> 
> Not so much for Jake, unfortunately.

“Oi. Max. Attend.  _ Attend, _ Max.” 

It seems unlikely that Max has heard the word more than a handful of times before in his life, but it quickly gets his attention if Evan says it impatiently enough, and he’s soon looking down at the charcoal-smeared magazine open in his lap. 

“Look, here.” Evan reaches over from where he’s sitting to give the open page a rough tap. “The Man-Cub is tryin’ to teach you something, boy. The least you could do is pay attention.”

“Aw. Sorry, Man-Cub.” Max looks over his shoulder at Jake, frowning. 

“It’s okay,” Jake tells him, offering him an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry about it. But look, see, you’ve nearly got it right.” 

They’d be quite a sight, if anyone else was there to see them, all gathered on and around the ‘new’ couch that Evan brought home a while back. For one thing, Philip might be the most relaxed Jake’s ever seen him be, laid out on his back across the whole couch - and then some, too, as Philip is  _ very  _ tall, and the couch isn’t all that wide. His long legs are dangling over the armrest at one end, and for the most part, he looks asleep, except for when he lifts his head every now and then to have a little look over Max’s shoulder, where he’s sat on the ground in front of the couch. Jake, from where he’s lying on his belly on top of Philip, resting his head on Philip’s chest, is in a good position to look over Max’s other shoulder and see what he’s doing, and specifically what he’s scrawling in the blank magazine in his lap. Then there’s Evan, sitting just next to Max, mostly focusing on his traps and and his tools, his own work, but occasionally pausing in his tinkering to call Max back to the task at hand when his mind starts to wander, which is fairly often, now that they’ve been at it for more than a little time.

It’s good, all being together like this, and maybe that’s why Max has been doing so well. As promised, Jake’s been teaching him to read and write, whenever Max has had time between trials, and Max has just been eating it up. Luckily, the Entity hasn’t grasped the concept of glossy pages, and so its shitty fake magazines have been excellent to write on, and the great thing about charcoal is that, if you make a mistake, it’s a simple enough matter to simply smudge it away with your hand until it’s light enough to write over again. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Max’s hands are quite heavily blackened with charcoal by now, and the fingertips of his right hand, where he’s been holding the piece he’s writing with, are just about as black as can be. Still, it’s hardly as if he has nothing to show for it. Besides the half-dozen magazines strewn about the place, their pages full of Max’s big, clumsy handwriting, the page he has open in his lap in front of him has just four letters written on it: M-A-K-S. 

“... Is that wrong?” he asks, looking down at it. 

“Only a little,” replies Jake. Philip barely stirs as he reaches over Max’s shoulder to point at the last two letters. “See, there’s another letter that makes that ‘ks’ sound, isn’t there? Which one is that?”

Now, Max has to think about that, and the tip of his tongue begins to stick out of his mouth as his brow creases. Nobody talks, then, giving him time to mull over what he’s been learning recently, and, hopefully, figure out the right answer by himself. Max is a doer, and he learns best when he’s allowed to do things for himself, rather than simply being told and expected to remember. 

“... Oh!” 

Evan doesn’t look up from what he’s doing, but chuckles quietly as Max, with great enthusiasm, rubs out the ‘K’ and ‘S’ with the heel of his hand, and proudly draws a big ‘X’ in their place. 

M-A-X.

“Yeah!” Jake laughs too, as Max grins at him. “There you go! Good job!”

Max hiccups with delight, and his companions are content to let him revel in his achievement for a while. With a yawn, Jake sets his head down on Philip’s chest once more, and a soft, contented hum escapes on his breath as he feels Philip’s fingers run lazily through his hair. Neither of them budge at the hefty thump that comes of Max tipping himself over to lie on his back, holding the magazine up at arm’s length to properly admire his handiwork, though Evan does, very briefly, glance over to make sure he’s alright before resuming with his own business. 

There is absolutely no practical purpose for reading or writing in the Nightmare, but that doesn’t mean that teaching Max to read and write is pointless. Far from it, it’s been more than worth the effort; look how  _ happy _ he is, for crying out loud. Happiness is a tough thing to come by in this place, a scarce and precious thing, a prize, a treasure, like gold dust, but by god, Max is  _ happy. _ He’s happy, and so are Evan, Philip and Jake. Teaching Max to read and write, and showing him, in doing so, that he’s just as good and smart as anybody, has been well worth the time and effort they’ve all spent on it together.

It’s good enough, in fact, that Jake is almost dozing right along with Philip, and it’s only Evan’s low, irritable growl that disturbs him before he can fully pass out. Without even saying anything, Evan is gathering up his things and getting to his feet - it must be the campfire, then. Of course, him upstairs always has to spoil moments like this, doesn’t he?

“Hey! Hey, wait!” Maxie is hurrying to get up too, then. “I’ll go! I’ll go!”

“No, no.” Evan’s already standing, though. “You stay. You’re doin’ well, let’s not interrupt it. Besides,” he says, already sounding weary, “I expect he’ll want you to come down soon enough anyway. Make the most of the time while you’ve got it.” 

“Aw, okay.” 

The disappointment does leave Max’s features, however, at least a little, with the heavy handed ruffle of his shabby, patchy hair that Evan gives him in parting, and as Evan leaves, Philip finally begins to wake up somewhat, sitting up to watch him go. 

As much as Jake would prefer to go on napping, there’s good reason for Philip to rouse them both; it’s been quite a while since they last saw Mr Myers, and with Evan gone, there’s little reason for him to stay away. Max is still here, of course, and so is Philip, but Evan is the one that Myers is scared of, and really, Jake can’t blame him, given the nature of their last meeting. Evan gave him a real beating, and it would have been even more real a beating if Myers hadn’t been quite so lucky swinging his knife around. He’d have to be a fool to come back after that. 

Now, they’re going to have to spot Myers before he can come near enough to make a nuisance of himself, and Philip is already looking around warily.

Max, meanwhile, seems oblivious to the potential danger, and is quite contentedly lying in the grass on his belly with his magazines and his charcoal. 

“Hey, Man-Cub?” 

“Hm?” Jake looks over at him, in the middle of getting himself comfortable on the couch again now that he and Philip are both sat up. “What’s up?”

“How d’you spell ‘Evan’?” asks Max, peering up at him from ground level. 

“Well, I dunno, Max,” Jake replies. “Let’s figure it out, huh? C’mon, sound it out. What letters does it sound like it has?” 

Thank fuck he didn’t ask how to spell Philip’s name, or Jake’s name - or ask what Jake’s name is, for that matter. There’s quite some irony in the fact that Jake is now the one being called by a nickname while everyone else goes about the place calling each other by their real, human names, but Jake is more than satisfied to be ‘the Man-Cub’ for the time being, or in general, when he thinks about it. When he takes a moment to reflect on what it would mean to go back to being called ‘Jake’ all the time, he can’t honestly say that he’s very interested or enthusiastic for it. 

“... Aw, shit.” 

As Max awkwardly clambers into a mostly-upright position, though, any reflection that Jake might have been indulging in is quickly scuppered. Sure enough, just as Evan predicted, that little light amongst the trees is still persisting. Him upstairs wants Max, now, too, and Max is more than a little sour at being called away. 

“It’s okay,” Jake tells him, doing his best to encourage him. “Just work  _ really, really hard, _ and then I bet he’ll let you come back really soon!” 

It’s encouragement that Max eagerly accepts, and he trots away into the woods with a smile on his face and a spring - albeit a fairly lopsided, uneven one - in his step. 

Philip, meanwhile, isn’t nearly so pleased. Max has barely been out of sight for a heartbeat or two when he puts his arm around Jake’s shoulders and squeezes him, looking around anxiously even as he turns his head to nuzzle Jake’s hair. 

_ Stay close to me. _

“It’s okay, man. I’m not gonna go anywhere.” Jake leans into Philip’s touch. “It’s okay.” 

Now that it’s just the two of them, the clearing has become an oppressively quiet place. Neither of them like it much, and it doesn’t take long for Philip to catch Jake’s arm and lead him towards the shack so he can look for something for them to do in there. There’s all kinds of bits and pieces in shack, things that Philip and the others have collected over time, and he’s soon got something to take their minds off the unpleasant situation they’re in. 

To begin with, the ball of twine doesn’t look like much to Jake, but once Philip has cut a length of it and tied it into a wide loop, his curiosity is piqued. By now he knows better than to ask, though. He’ll get to see what it’s for soon enough, and once they’re back on the couch again, crosslegged - because why in the world would they waste the good fortune of having the thing by sitting on it like sensible, civilised people? - Philip, sure enough, shows him what the twine is for, nimbly threading it around and between his long fingers to produce increasingly intricate patterns. 

“Oh! It’s like, uh, like a cat’s cradle, right?” 

Philip nods, then holds out his hands, offering the threaded string to Jake. It’s a game, Jake will eventually figure out, the goal of which is to pass the cradle back and forth between them, making it into something else each time, either until somebody fucks up, or until they wind up with a pattern that can’t be made into anything else. 

Learning how to make a cat’s cradle at all would have been novel enough; in the back of his mind, Jake has always wondered how to make things like that, but he’d never guessed that it was a game. In fact, he’s so engrossed in fiddling with the string around his fingers and trying not to wind up hopelessly entangled in it that he barely notices Philip continuing to take restless, fearful glances around the clearing until he’s gently putting his palms to the backs of Philip’s hands to slip the cradle off Philip’s fingers and onto his own for what might be the tenth or eleventh time, and realises that Philip isn’t watching him do it. 

There’s still no sign of Evan or Max. No sign of Myers either, Jake is relieved to notice, but that, it seems, is not enough to settle Philip’s nerves. Is he really so afraid of Myers? Given that he’s seen Philip readily challenge Myers before, it seems unlikely. Philip is no coward, and Jake has to wonder what he’s really worried about.

He doesn’t have to wait long to find out. 

Once again, the distant light of the campfire begins to glow, deep in the woods, and Philip, turning to stare at it, audibly swallows. He bodily turns to look around after that, desperately hoping that someone else will answer the call, and Jake, letting the woven twine slip from his fingers, lightly places his hand on Philip’s arm. 

“It’s okay, man. Sally’ll get it. Or Lisa, Lisa’s out there somewhere too, isn’t she? It’ll be okay.” 

It’s not only for Philip’s benefit that he’s saying that, either. All attempts at lighthearted play have come to an abrupt halt; it’s all Philip and Jake can bear to do to sit there and watch that tiny, flickering light, praying that its call will be satisfied by someone else. If Philip has to leave to take part in a trial, Jake will be left in the clearing on his own, and then he really  _ will _ be in trouble if Myers shows up. 

They wait for as long as they dare, but in the end, Jake finds himself more afraid of Philip ending up on the Entity’s shit list for not showing up when he’s supposed to. 

“... You better go, man.”

The suggestion earns him a wide-eyed stare that comes across somewhere between horrified and incredulous, but he insists. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ll hide. I’ll hide, and I won’t come out until someone comes home. I’ll be okay, just go. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

Philip is far from convinced, and in the end, Jake has to beg him to leave, at which point he does finally - very reluctantly - agree, but not before gently but urgently ushering Jake into the shelter. Cautiously, he pauses outside to take a good look around, making sure that nobody is lingering nearby to see him nudge Jake in through the doorway, and then ducks inside himself to give him a tellingly tight hug. 

“I’ll be okay,” Jake tells him, again. “Just go. Hurry. I love you, okay? Go, go,” he says, not quite pulling away from the nuzzle Philip gives him. “Go on, I’ll be okay.” 

And Philip does go, eventually. Jake lingers at the entrance of the shelter for long enough to watch him leave, but it only really dawns on him, fully, that he’s now completely alone when he’s been gone for a while, and the silence starts to become overbearing. Christ, he would have given an arm and a leg for solitude and quiet like this back at the old place, but then again, he didn’t have  _ friends  _ back there, either. None of his fellow Survivors are thoughtful or considerate or anywhere near as  _ caring _ as Philip, Evan and Max. 

Even without the looming threat of danger, he’d still miss them. 

Still, it’s not so bad. The shelter is a small, dark, cozy place, a place where it’s easy to feel safe, secure and hidden. And hell, Myers might not even show up. For all Jake knows, he might end up sitting here bored for the entire time it takes someone to finish their work and come home, and he has to admit, he’s starting to feel a little like that already. He  _ is _ bored. It’s just another way in which he’s become dependent upon Philip and the others, he supposes, but, then again, isn’t it  normal to miss your friends, to prefer being with them than by yourself? It seems obvious that he’d miss them, when he thinks about it like that. 

Dropping to his back in the hay, Jake wonders what he’s supposed to do with himself. There’s only so much he can do on his own in the shelter. He could take a nap, but that doesn’t seem terribly wise; he needs to listen out for Myers. It’s only safe to sleep when there’s someone else to sleep next to. 

The  _ boredom, _ though.

It’s a very compelling force, urging Jake do to something,  _ anything, _ anything at all other than the sensible, quiet lying around that he’s doing right now. God, just  _ move, _ just do  _ something. _

It takes some considerable time for his self consciousness to eventually subside, but once it’s finally gone, there’s a whole plethora of things Jake finds he can do. He can stick his leg in the air, for example. That’s a thing he can do. Yep. That’s a good leg. The other leg is pretty good, too. And, he can try to reach his toes. It’s harder to do when you’re on your back than it is when you’re right side up, it turns out. You’ll lose your balance and topple over a lot before you even get to the part where you have to stretch, which is a pain. 

Reaching his toes while he’s sitting is much easier. He’s not flexible enough to do that thing he’s seen Meg do, though - she can lean so far forward while she’s sitting that her chest nearly touches the ground. Not that knowing he can’t do it is going to stop Jake from trying, of course, and it’s during the third attempt at this that he hears the footsteps outside. 

The shelter, partially buried, muffles most of the clearing’s noise, but not footsteps. Footsteps, in the shelter, seem louder than they really are, because one can feel them as much as he hears them, and initially, Jake is excited at it, assuming that someone must have come home. 

At least, he’s excited until he really  _ listens _ to them.

They’re too light to be Evan’s footsteps, but not light enough to be Philip’s. They’re too even to be Max’s, Sally doesn’t  _ have _ footsteps, and Lisa never comes through here. 

Jake swallows. 

_ Hide! Hide! _

He’s good at hiding. He’s good at staying still and quiet, and he’s hidden from Killers successfully in places far more open than this. It’s stupid to wait and see where Myers is going; Jake needs to hide  _ now, _ while he’s got the time to do it properly, and he’d much rather hide and wind up not needing to be hidden than run the risk of blowing his cover by hanging around. 

The hay is just deep enough to shuffle down into and cover himself with, and if he pulls a couple of sheets over the top of that, the shelter will appear convincingly unoccupied, and the bare ground under Jake’s belly is cold as he lies there prone beneath it all, but it’s far from the worst he’s had to endure. He can stay like this for as long as it takes, and, as he reaches into his pocket, if the worst comes to it and he  _ is  _ found, he’s not entirely defenseless. Evan gave him the shiv and told him to stab Myers in the eye with it, and by god, that’s what Jake will do if he has to.

Steadying his breathing, Jake makes himself as silent as he can be, and focuses on Myers’ footfalls, putting his ear to the ground, the makeshift shiv grasped tightly in his fist. He keeps stopping. Walking a little way, and then stopping, walking a little way, and then stopping. No doubt he must be looking over his shoulder every few yards, knowing that he isn’t supposed to be here, but he’s taking the opportunity while everyone else is away. Of course, Myers spends nearly all of his time down at the campfire. If everyone else is down there, he’s going to see them, and he’s going to know that the clearing is empty. 

Empty, except for Jake.

Once he’s had time to take a quick look around and ascertain that the place really is deserted, Myers’ movements become less cautious. Jake can hear him roaming around, searching. Too much of a coward to come here while Evan, Philip and Max are around - or, perhaps, too smart - Myers is taking his time giving the place the once over. Judging by the direction and distance, he must be in or around the shack, and Jake wonders, briefly, if he’s curious about it. It must be odd to come upon the real thing after seeing its facsimile so often during trials. 

Curious or not, however, the shack doesn’t hold Myers’ interest for long. He’s soon moving around again, and Jake knows that the shelter is the only other source of cover in the clearing. Sure enough, Myers is shortly making a beeline for him, and he grits his teeth. If he can just stay still enough, quiet enough, if he can just hold his nerve, it’ll be alright. Myers has no reason to think he’s here if the shelter looks empty. He’d have to be psychic to know that he’s in here. He’d have to be.

Myers hesitates outside the shelter. Of all the places he isn’t supposed to be, the shelter is the most forbidden of all, and he’s leery, listening to make absolutely sure that nobody - at least, nobody who can threaten him - is inside. 

_ Don’t move. _

There’s a rustle, and the metallic noise of the rough edges of the shelter’s entrance being brushed by a hand or a shoulder, then a second, quicker, harsher scrape as Myers ducks out again to take another look over his shoulder. 

_ For the love of god, don’t move.  _

If Jake moves or makes a sound, he’s fucked. Myers doesn’t know he’s here. He  _ can’t _ know. All Jake has to do is hold his fucking nerve. It’s easier said than done, though, when, after another long, wavering pause, Myers gets up the guts to stick his head inside the shelter again, and stays there. The hair on the back of Jake’s neck begins to stand on end; surely, he can see that nobody is here. What the fuck is he looking for? There’s nobody here! Why isn’t he leaving!? 

_ There’s nobody here, asshole! Fuck off! Get lost!  _

All of it is blown away in a heartbeat by something far louder and faster, something that approaches at speed and shakes the earth under Jake’s body like some sudden rush of thunder, and an instant later, Myers withdraws from the shelter’s entrance far too abruptly for it to have been by his own doing. 

_ “NO MORE GAMES, BLACKGUARD!!” _

An instant later, Myers hits the ground with force enough to send the little hanging lamp dangling from the shelter’s ceiling swinging, and Jake, hurrying to dig himself out of the hay and sheets he’s been buried under, looks outside just in time to see Evan charge him at a full sprint, having hurled him halfway across the clearing. Myers scrambles desperately to get to his feet and flee, but Evan isn’t giving him the chance, closing the distance between them and swinging for him with all of his terrible might the instant he’s within reach. 

There’s no talking this time, no pageantry. Myers was warned, last time, and he still came. Truly, he deserves everything that he’s about to get. 

He ducks and weaves well enough to scarcely dodge the first two punches, but the third comes far too quick and hard for him to evade and Evan’s fist connects brutally with his cheekbone. The blow comes down with enough force to knock him violently off balance, and there’s no getting away from Evan after that. Once again, Myers attempts to retaliate, but Evan is having none of it, and, striding forwards all the while, forcing Myers back, he grabs Myers’ raised wrist at the first sign of those gathering embers, twisting his arm with a cruel jerking motion that produces an audible crunch before reeling back to kick him squarely in the stomach. There’ll be no foolery with knives this time, either.

Evan is a monster. It’s a fact that Jake has come to accept about him. That he’s strong enough to throw someone not that much smaller than himself around like a ragdoll is nothing short of astonishing; now that Evan is genuinely angry, rather than merely trying to drive home a point, Myers can’t hope to stand up to him, and before long, Evan is holding him against a tree just to keep him upright enough that he can keep punching him.

Blood is starting to appear on Myers’ mask, around the eyes, the holes under the nose, the edge around his neck, anywhere it can seep out of. His face must be caked with it underneath, but Evan, now pinning him to the tree by his throat with his left hand, his grip tightening as he continues to rain down blows with his right, is not interested in mercy. 

Jake can’t pretend to be particularly interested in it, either.

There’s another loud, dull thud as Myers is slammed to the ground, and another, almost as loud but considerably harsher, as Evan boots him in the head. He makes no attempt to fight back whatsoever, only doing enough to curl up and shield his face with his arms, and even as Evan kicks him in the ribs and stomach a few times more, Myers can only let it happen. 

Finally, Evan seems to lose interest. He gives Myers one more good, swift kick, hard enough to turn him over, before backing off to catch his breath. Even then, though, Myers doesn’t react straight away, and it’s only when he’s been left unmolested for a little while that he dares move at all, just barely dropping his arms enough to look up at Evan, who is still towering over him. 

“Go on.” Evan growls at him. “Fuck off.” 

The punishment, when Myers fails to do as he’s told quickly enough, is another boot in his gut, this time hard enough to send him rolling. 

“Go on!” roars Evan, as Myers scrambles, unsteady and doubled over, for the treeline. “Get hence! And if you dare show yourself here again, I’ll kill you!” 

It’s no idle threat. In defending his own, Evan is fierce, and has demonstrated himself to be both willing and able to back up his words. Needless to say, Myers vanishes into the woods in short order. 

With Myers dealt with, however, Evan soon has other things on his mind.

“Man-Cub!?” He straightens up, looking around. “Man-Cub!” 

At the call of his ‘name’, Jake is all too eager to come out of hiding, and the moment Evan hears his running footfalls, he turns, coming to meet him, dropping to one knee to throw his arms around him and gather him up. Jake, despite not being able to reach all the way around Evan, or even most of the way around Evan, grabs him and holds onto him as tightly as he can regardless, huddling beneath him. 

“Thank christ,” he hears Evan breathe. “I thought we’d lost you. Are you alright?” he asks, leaning back just enough that he can get a look at Jake. “Did he hurt you?” 

“No,” Jake replies, almost breathless himself. “No, he didn’t touch me. I don’t think he knew I was in there.” 

“Thank fuck.” 

With the danger passed, Evan draws in a long, deep breath, and gives an equally long, deep sigh, trying to settle himself. 

“Thank fuck,” he says, again, his head dropping as he gives Jake another squeeze. 

Without another thought, Jake reaches up for him, putting an arm around Evan’s neck so that he can touch their heads together, and although Evan doesn’t react straight away, perhaps for the sheer unexpectedness of it, when he does, it’s with great warmth, gently cupping the back of Jake’s head in his hand to return the gesture.

“Fucks sake.” He gives a soft chuckle as he eventually pulls away, brushing a couple of bits of straw out of Jake’s hair. “Look at the state of you, you’re an animal.” 

“Man, I’d be a lot worse than that if you hadn’t showed up when you did,” Jake remarks, grinning. “That was some luck!” 

“Oh, no.” Evan shakes his head. “T’was no luck, my lad. Sally told me to come.” 

“Are you serious?” Jake’s eyes widen. “Sally?”

“Believe me, I’m as shocked as you are. But she told me she’d seen Myers coming this way on her way down to the fire, and what with everyone else bein’ down there already, she knew you were by yourself. Said I’d probably best pop back and see to it.” 

“Man. That’s…” All Jake can do is stare in disbelief. “... That’s crazy.”

“I know, I know. I owe her some weighty thanks, that’s for damn certain.” 

“Yeah, I’ll say. Wow.”

There’s not much else to do after that but try to settle themselves, a job for which the ‘new’ couch is very well suited. In the short time for which they’ve had the thing, Jake has already developed a habit of rushing over to it ahead of Evan, for no other reason than Evan being so massive that Jake will bounce when he sits down if he’s on the couch first, and Evan, knowing this, pretends to hurry himself for those first few strides towards it, just to get Jake running, and, after letting Jake get there before him, plants himself down on the couch far more heavily than he needs to. 

However, as he’s sitting there getting his hair ruffled, Jake remembers something that he’s been meaning to ask. 

“... Hey, Evan?”

“Hm?”

It feels like a shame to spoil everything like this; leaning back in his seat, Evan looks more relaxed than Jake’s seen him for a long time. 

“... I wanted to ask.” He persists regardless. “About what Max said before.” 

“And what was that, Man-Cub?” 

“... He said you only like me because I do stuff for you.” 

“.. Oh.” 

Instantly, Evan’s demeanor changes, and he stirs uncomfortably. Jake presses him. 

“Is that true?”

Evan sighs, and shakes his head. 

“No, no. Of course not.” 

“Well…” Jake frowns. “... Why’d he say that? I mean, Maxie gets his wires crossed and makes mistakes sometimes, but he doesn’t just…  _ make shit up, _ does he?”

“... No. No, he doesn’t. You’re right about that.” 

The couch shifts with Evan’s weight as he repositions himself again, pausing for thought before giving another big, weary sigh. 

“... It would have been true,” he explains, eventually, “If you’d come here a while ago.” 

Jake looks up at him, his brow furrowing. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean,” Evan replies, patiently, “That things used to be  _ a bit different.  _ You know I’ve been here a long time,” he says, sounding more and more tired as he goes on. “A lot has changed since I got here.” 

Back when Evan first arrived in the Nightmare, he explains, he was very much the same man he was when he was alive, namely the man who’d taken great pride in running his father’s business with great success - at the cost of his scruples, he admits. 

“It’s a funny thing,” he remarks. “My dad always used to say that… the better kind of wealth is the kind that doesn’t come from money, but from being surrounded by friends and family. I thought I understood, back when I was a young lad, but then I grew up, and suddenly I couldn’t make sense of it anymore. Having good neighbours isn’t gonna put food on your table, is it, no matter how nice you are to them.” 

To Evan, people were only worth what they could give him. It was an attitude that had seen the family estate flourish under his management, that he’d doubled down on when his father’s health dwindled to the degree that he could no longer participate in the running of the mine at all, and that he’d brought with him when he’d been taken by the Entity. 

“And of course, back then, there was nobody else here besides me, so there was nobody to tell me I was wrong, was there.” 

“You… you were here by yourself?”

“Oh, yes. This was back before you and your lot turned up, mind you.” 

“Was there anyone else before us?” 

“Mm. Many. Though most of ‘em didn’t last as long as you.” 

There was quite a revolving door of Survivors back in the day, Evan recalls. He’d rarely see the same faces more than a handful of times before they were just… gone. 

“Where’d they go?” asks Jake, now sitting crosslegged on the couch next to him. “I mean… I  _ know  _ they didn’t get out.” 

“I couldn’t honestly tell you,” Evan replies, with a lazy toss of his hands. “I’ve no idea. But they gave up, you see, and him upstairs has no more use for you after you give up. I expect he just throws people away when he’s done with them. There was one or two who lasted, but even they disappeared in the end, and that’s when he got you and yours in.” 

Jake supposes that he shouldn’t be surprised to hear that he and his fellows aren’t the first. It  _ is _ quite a revelation, however, to learn that he and his fellows have outlasted their predecessors. And here he thought they were doing badly for how miserable and shitty they all are. It’s certainly news to him. 

“But in any case,” Evan continues, “I had fuck all in the way of company for fuck knows how long, and then one day Philip turns up, doesn’t he.” 

Philip, as a Killer, was categorically useless. The Entity had gifted him some truly remarkable talents, but he found it difficult to make good use of them, and after the initial shock of being faced with a new opponent with new skills, even the most cowardly Survivors soon learned that they could run rings around him, and Philip let them do it. 

“He couldn’t pull his weight for love nor money,” says Evan, shaking his head. “I should have hated him.” 

“... But you didn’t.”

“Well, no, not when I saw that him and me were the same. He couldn’t tell me where he’d come from or who he’d been taken from or who‘d been taken from him, but christ, he was suffering. He didn’t need to be able to talk for me to see that, for fucks sake, and, I mean, every time he came back from a trial he just seemed to… I don’t know, it was like he was fadin’ away. Like he was sick. It was makin’ him ill to have to do it.” 

“Is that why you said you’d do his work for him?” 

“Yeah,” Evan sighs, leaning back into the couch. “Yeah, it is. I gave him some old rubbish about keepin’ him out of trouble for how shit he was at the work, but… I suppose I just didn’t want to have to see him suffer anymore.”

“... Did it help?”

“Oh, yeah, it helped.” He chuckles. “I don’t know if it’s just that he felt like a dead weight bein’ back here on his own all the time while I did all the work, but every time I came back, I’d find some little thing he’d done for me, if he wasn’t there waitin’ for me himself.”

The fondness in Evan’s voice doesn’t go unnoticed, and Jake finds himself grinning as he listens to it.

“But I should have hated him,” Evan goes on. “And I  _ knew _ I should have hated him.” 

“You weren’t shitty to him, were you?” 

“No, no. Just standoffish. I mean, I thought I was better than him, didn’t I. It made me feel better about, y’know.” 

He throws his hand up, gesturing sloppily at the clearing and permanent, unchanging night around them. 

“This nonsense.” 

“Y’know, yeah.” Jake frowns, easily able to think of someone else like that. “Yeah, I can… I can get that. I don’t think you’re the only one.” 

“Well yeah, of course,” says Evan. “That dickhead with the glasses is the same, isn’t he.” 

Jake stares at him. 

“What?” he asks. “It’s obvious, he bullies the rest of you because it makes him feel better and people keep lettin’ him get away with it. He needs a smack in the teeth. But I digress,” he says. “I made an effort to  _ not like Philip, _ and that sounds stupid when I say it now, but that’s what I did. On principle.” 

“That’s dumb.” 

“Isn’t it, though? And I didn’t even realise how fuckin’ stupid it was for, oh,  _ ages and ages _ of us both bein’ here. But bless him, he was grateful for me tryin’a help him, and honestly, I think he saw through me a bit. He looked after me. Arguably, I did  _ not  _ deserve it, but he looked after me, kept me sane, and after a while, I pulled my head out of my arse and started doing the same for him.” 

“Well, Philip  _ is _ pretty great,” Jake remarks, with a cheeky smile. “You’d have to be  _ pretty shitty _ to be a jerk to him.” 

“Yeah.” Jake can’t see Evan smiling too, but he can hear it. “Yeah, he’s… he’s good, our Philip.”

“Man, you love Philip, don’t you.”

“Of course I do. He’s my best friend.” 

There’s a pause, then, a distinct silence, as Jake sits there and looks Evan as near to dead in the eye as he can manage. 

“... What?”

“Your best friend, huh?” 

“He is!” 

“I’m not saying he isn’t,” says Jake, far too innocently. “I’m just saying, that’s not  _ all _ he is, is it.” 

This time, the pause is considerably longer and heavier, and when Jake refuses to turn away or even stop smiling when Evan glares back at him, Evan leans towards him, and points at him sternly.

“Look, you little shit, if you’ve got somethin’ to say about it -” 

“No, no!” Jake tries not to laugh, raising his hands. “No, man, no, listen, it’s cool, okay? Things are different now. Like, you could  _ marry _ Philip if you wanted to.” 

Immediately, Evan straightens up. 

“... What, really? Look, no.” He hastily corrects himself. “Shut up. You’re distracting me. Yes, I am  _ very fond _ of Philip,” he says, gesturing with rigid, frustrated hands. “I wouldn’t be without him for anything, and I could tell you some bollocks about how beggars can’t be choosers and he was the only company I had for fuck knows how long, but…”

He sighs. 

“... Even if I had a choice, I’d still pick Philip. He  _ is _ very good. So much better than I deserve.” 

“I guess you were lucky to have him back then, huh?” asks Jake, still greatly amused. 

“Yeah, too right. Especially when Max turned up, fuck me.”

When Max first arrived in the clearing, it was immediately very evident that the Entity had done almost nothing with him, save perhaps for making him a little taller and stronger so that he’d perform better as a Killer. It had explained nothing to him, cured none of his ails and given him none of the kind of mental acuity or faculties that would have helped him to understand what was happening to him. It  _ could _ have given him those things, Evan bitterly remarks - the Entity can and regularly does give people all kinds of wondrous gifts, when it suits it - but it didn’t. 

“Him upstairs, he only thinks about what serves him best, and poor Maxie bein’ frightened and angry served him very well indeed, because it meant he could just turn him loose in a trial and watch him run amok.” 

Max was, back then, barely better than an animal, Evan explains, and suddenly he had what appeared, for all the world, to be Philip’s polar opposite on his hands - Max was excellent at the work, but he was a terror and a nuisance outside of it. After all, he had no way of knowing what was a trial and what wasn’t, or even that there were such things as trials, and he would frequently lash out at Evan and Philip because he didn’t know any better. 

“Mind you,” Evan says, “He learned quickly enough that he’d get a smack if he tried to have a go at me or Philip, so that was soon put a stop to, but christ, he was nigh uncontrollable otherwise. Like, puttin’ things in his mouth all the time, that was a fucking nightmare. Anything that wasn’t quite obviously made of metal, he’d just fuckin’ -” 

He gestures vaguely towards his own mouth. 

“Everything. Birds, sticks, Philip’s paints, he fuckin’ drank those a fair few times - anything he could get his fuckin’ hands on. You couldn’t leave him unsupervised with anything, it was horrendous.”

Evan didn’t have the patience for it. Whereas Philip at least made himself useful around the clearing in exchange for Evan’s doing much of his share of the work, there was no reward whatsoever for picking up after Max all night long, and Evan regularly lost his temper at him for it. 

“And that’s what he remembers, I’d imagine,” he sighs, with no small measure of regret. “Me fuckin’... bellowing at him for every fuckin’ thing that he did and tryin’ to get him under control. He doesn’t forget things, y’know. He’s not stupid.” 

But Philip wasn’t interested in  _ controlling  _ Max. Philip wanted to  _ teach  _ him. He was confident that if they could just be kind to Max, if they could just prove to him that he was in a safe place amongst friends and show him how to behave by example, he’d settle and do as he was told more often, and they’d have less trouble with him. 

“But bein’ kind was hard,” Evan explains. “Not least because it so often felt like I was gettin’ nothing for it. But Philip insisted.”

So, for Philip’s sake, Evan did his best to be more patient, more gentle, and sure enough, with time - albeit a great deal of time - Max did eventually begin to settle, just as Philip had thought he would. It likely helped that he was getting to know what to expect from trials, starting to learn the routine of going to the campfire and coming back, starting to understand the difference between the work and the clearing. He even began to talk, after a while, which was a surprise. 

“God, Philip was excited when that happened,” Evan fondly recalls. “Maxie had always understood what was said to him, but he’d never  _ talked, _ and I suppose Philip saw it as a sign that we were doing somethin’ right. But y’know,” he says, his tone lowering, “Once I wasn’t chasing around after him all the while and he was doing his share of the work, I did get a lot of time to think.”

“... Was that a good thing?” asks Jake, sincerely curious. 

“It didn’t feel like it at the time,” Evan replies. “All I ended up with was a lot of regrets.” 

“Really? Like what?” 

“Well, like…” Evan leans back, a giant sitting on a couch made for normal, regular-sized people, tall enough that he can easily rest his elbows on the backrest. “... Like the realisation that I’d become something that my father would have hated, for one thing,” he finally answers. “I thought about myself and what I’d done and been doing, and it occurred to me that I was not the man that my dad would have wanted me to be. Far from it, he would’ve been  _ appalled  _ at me. I’d become like  _ him upstairs, _ in fact, just taking all the time and usin’ people for what they were worth to me.” 

“I bet that stung, huh.” 

“Oh, yeah. Christ. That was a fuckin’ horrible thought, that I was no better than him upstairs, that he might have thought that we were  _ alike. _ And here I thought I’d been doin’ the right thing all along, y’know? I thought I’d done my dad proud, runnin’ the business like I did, I thought I’d looked after him well when he got sick, and I thought I’d been wise to have the attitudes I had about what made other people worthwhile, but…”

He shakes his head disdainfully. 

“... I’d just been selfish, that’s all. Because bein’ selfish is easy, isn’t it, and bein’ kind is hard. And I wondered, for a while, if it was even worth tryin’ to change after all that time. I mean, my dad wasn’t gonna see it, was he? I knew he must’ve been long dead in any case, I was never gonna see him again, but then that’s not the point, is it. You don’t put yourself out and be decent because you think you’re gonna get a pat on the back, do you. You do it because it’s the right and proper thing to do. I would’ve known that if I’d tried harder to remember what made me admire him so much when I was younger.” 

And he really  _ had _ admired his father, back then. Jake remembers hearing Evan talk about him, how he’d called him upstanding, decent, a gentleman, but the man Evan had become was none of those things. 

“And, you know, I wasn’t here on my own anymore, was I? I had Philip with me, and Max, and they still had to deal with me, didn’t they, they still had to, fuckin’,  _ experience  _ me. I thought it’d be worth making the effort for them, at least.” 

“Well, I think you’re doing a pretty good job,” Jake tells him, with an encouraging smile. “For what it’s worth. I mean, hell, you admit it when you’re wrong and apologise when you fuck up. A lot of people can’t do that.” 

“Heh, thank you, Man-Cub. I do try. But I worry a lot that it’s been too little and too late. The damage has been done, I think. It’s definitely what Max remembers, me bein’ a self-centred piece of shit. He said I like you because you do stuff for me because I  _ was _ like that. You’re lucky you’re here now, and not back then.” 

“Man, it sounds like it. Jesus. But, I mean…” Jake looks up at Evan, and again offers him a smile. “... Maybe Maxie’ll come around with enough time, huh?” 

“Yeah.” There’s warmth in Evan’s voice as he looks down at him. “Yeah, maybe he will.”

“Besides,” says Jake, brightening, “I wasn’t in a whole lot of doubt anyway, not after watching you beat the guts outta Myers like that, holy shit.” 

“Yeah?” Evan laughs. “You liked that, did you? You little demon.” 

“Yeah!” exclaims Jake, grinning. “It was awesome! I’ve never seen anybody punch a guy like that! That was the coolest!” 

“You are a little fucking demon,” Evan chortles, peering at him in the way that he does when he’s tickled by something he’s said or done. “What am I to do with you, honestly.” 

“Well, you could teach me how to throw a punch like that.” Jake’s grin grows ever wider. “That’d be pretty great.” 

“Oh, would it, now? Christ. Alright,” he says, heaving himself off the couch. “Come on, then.”

“You’re gonna!?” Jake almost flies off the couch after him. “Are you serious!?”

“Well, you asked, didn’t you? Come on.” 

“Shit yeah!”

And so Evan does show him. Obviously, Jake can’t match him for size or brute strength, but, as he explains, having the right technique can go a long way. Keep your wrist straight, your thumb on the outside of your fist rather than clasping it with your fingers, and throw from your hip instead of your shoulder, he says, and invites Jake to swing at him. Jake can’t hope to hurt him, so he’s free to give it his all; Evan catches his fists easily, and praises him when he starts to get the hang of it.

“That’s it, good lad. Feet apart, keep your balance. There you go.” 

Being able to punch properly is vastly more rewarding than Jake was lead to believe when he was a kid. His dad would kill him if he knew he was learning to punch properly. That he’s getting to be so good at it gives Jake cause to think about how long they’ve been there practising, however, and he eventually loses some of his enthusiasm when he sees that there’s still no sign of Philip. 

“It’s alright,” Evan tells him, mussing his hair. “Him upstairs likes to keep him for a long time once he’s got him, that’s all. He’ll be back soon enough.” 

“Man.” Jake’s shoulders drop a little as he glances towards the treeline. “That’s gotta suck for him.” 

“Yeah, it does. We’ll make it better for him when he comes home, though, won’t we.”

At that, he manages a smile. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, nodding. “Yeah, we will.” 

“C’mon.” Evan gives him a nudge towards the shelter. “We’ll take a nap until Philip and Max get back. It’s as good a way to spend the time as any.” 

As Evan heads towards the shelter himself, however, Jake doesn’t follow. 

“... Evan?”

“Hm?” He turns around. “What?”

“... You said people stopped showing up in trials after they gave up,” Jake says, hesitantly. “Doesn’t… doesn’t that mean it’d be better if we all just… gave up? So we can stop?” 

“No.” There’s no hesitation from Evan, though, as he turns around, comes straight back to Jake and kneels, placing his hands on Jake’s shoulders. “No, no. Never. We’re not doin’ that. We not gonna give him the pleasure. Not now, not in a hundred years, nor in a thousand years, do you understand?” 

“But…” Jake frowns, barely lifting his head enough to look at Evan. “... What’re we supposed to do? There’s no way out of here, is there?” 

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Evan tells him, his voice a low, stern rumble. “We’re going to look after each other, and we’re going to make each other happy. Alright? Because as long as we’re happy, we’re thwarting him. That’s how we win, understand? As long as we’re happy, in spite of everything he tries to do to us, we’re thwarting him.” 

When understanding fails to dawn on Jake’s face, however, Evan hurries to pull him into a hug. 

“Look, c’mere. C’mon. This is it, alright? This is that better kind of wealth my dad used to talk about, I get it now. I do. We’ve got everything we need. We just have to look after each other and we’ll be alright. You might not get it right now, but you will, you’ll get it. Just trust me, alright? We’re winning. We’re thwarting him. We are.”  

“Okay.” Jake clings to him, and presses his forehead against Evan’s just about as hard as he can. “Okay, man.” 

“I’ll look after you,” Evan tells him, softly, leaning back against him in turn. “I will. And you’ll look after me, and we’ll both look after Philip and Maxie, and they’ll look after us. And him upstairs can go and fuck himself, because he’s never gonna get the better of us. Alright?”

“Okay.”

“Now, let’s go and have us a rest, eh?”

“Okay.”

The shelter is still the small, dark, cozy place that it’s always been, and much moreso now for having Evan in it, who is all too happy to lie down and take that nap. More than just having beaten the snot out of Myers, Jake realises, he’s been running around doing the work for christ knows how long before that, too. He must be tired; no wonder he falls asleep so quickly. 

For Jake, though, rest doesn’t come nearly so easily. Now that there’s nothing to distract him from it, he’s starting to become aware of just how shaken up he is. Despite being warm, safe and comfortable, curled up under a couple of sheets in his usual spot, and despite having Evan  _ right there, _ barely a couple of feet away, his heart won’t stop fluttering and pounding, his hands won’t stop trembling. The harder he tries to ignore it all and settle himself, the more persistent the fear seems to become, and in the end, there’s nothing much else he can do about it. 

“... Evan.” He sits up, and reaches over to give Evan a nudge. “Evan, wake up.” 

“Mmn. Wh.” Evan does wake up, but only barely. “Wh, what is it, Man-Cub?” He looks blearily over his shoulder. “What’s… what’s the matter?” 

“I’m scared.” There’s no point in lying about it, really. “I wanna sleep over there with you.” 

He’s left wondering if he’s asking for too much when Evan doesn’t react straight away, but when he does answer, it’s fairly apparent that the delay has more to do with his being tired and still mostly asleep than anything else. 

“... That’s… Myers isn’t gonna come back, Man-Cub.” Evan’s voice has that particularly deep, slightly croaky quality that can only come from being supremely drowsy. “What’re you afraid of?” 

“I don’t know.” Jake admits. “It’s just a thing that’s happening.” 

Again, Evan has to take a few moments to think about it before he replies. 

“... Fair enough,” he says, eventually. “Come on, then. Climb aboard.” 

So Jake does, and Evan only grumbles a little as Jake awkwardly clambers over him to shove himself under his arm and right up under his chin. Evan’s arm, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a lot heavier than Philip’s, and it’s actually quite a struggle to wriggle underneath until Evan obligingly lifts it up enough that Jake can get himself comfortable. 

“There now,” he says, once he’s finally able to put his arm down again. “I’m not Philip, but I’ll do in a pinch, eh?” 

“Aw man, don’t say it like that.” Jake yawns. “H, hey, you… you didn’t get in trouble for coming away from the campfire, did you?” 

“Nah. I did plenty, it was about time I came home anyway.”

“Okay.”

“Now go to sleep, alright?” 

“Mhm. Okay.” 

“And… Man-Cub?” 

“Mm?” 

“... I am fond of you, Man-Cub. You do know that, don’t you.” 

“Yeah, I know. I love you, too.” 

At that, Jake feels Evan swallow. 

“... You… you do, do you?” 

“Mhm.” 

“... Thank you.”

“S’okay. G’night, Evan.” 

“Goodnight, Man-Cub.” 

The long, slow inhale and exhale that Evan gives as he’s settling are something that Jake is used to hearing from a distance, and it’s a very different experience to be huddled right up against Evan’s chest when they happen. He’s a wholly different beast to Philip, who is a soft, delicate creature by comparison; even the beating of Evan’s heart seems heavier and harsher than the heartbeat that Jake has grown used to falling asleep listening to. But that’s not to say that it’s  _ less good, _ Jake reflects, as he begins to doze. It’s just different, that’s all.

The simultaneously wondrous and terrifying thing about sleep is that, when one is asleep, time passes by like nothing at all, and it’s hard to say how long Jake has been asleep for when Evan’s low, gravelly attempt at a whisper disturbs him, sounding all the louder for Jake’s head resting against his chest. 

“It’s alright, Philip. I’ve got him. Look, he’s here.” 

There’s a quiet rustle of hay as Philip comes gently to Evan’s side, and Evan lifts his head to greet him. Sure enough, Philip has come home, and his first thought has been to come and look for Jake, to make sure that he’s safe and in one piece. Jake stirs and yawns at the light touch of Philip’s hand on his hair, and again when Philip steps over Evan and cuddles up to him on Jake’s other side. Evan huffs and gripes a little - of course he does - but still winds up lifting his arm and putting it around Philip as well regardless, and Jake happily makes himself comfortable between them. 

It doesn’t take him too long at all to drift off again. 

However, the next time he’s woken, it’s far less gently: Max must have come home at some point while he was asleep, and, judging by just how loud and close the snoring is, he’s curled up next to Evan’s back and put himself to bed there. Nobody else seems to notice, and all Jake can really do is tuck himself as far underneath Evan’s bulk as he can to muffle the noise. It doesn’t really work, but Jake is still drowsy enough to go back to sleep easily enough. 

At least, until Evan moves some while later. The campfire is calling, and Evan, growling with the effort and inconvenience of having to get up, has simply assumed that he’ll be the one to answer it. However, Jake isn’t the only one he’s woken by sitting up, and Max, shortly realising what’s happening, is quick to catch him. 

“No, no, I’ll go, I’ll go. Go back to sleep, I’ll go.” 

“Oh, Maxie.” Evan groans, trying to stretch and flex himself awake. “You don’t have to do that.” 

“I know,” Max tells him, “But I wanna. Just go back to sleep, okay? I’ll get it this time.” 

“... Alright, alright. Thank you, Max.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

By that time, though, Jake is yawning and stretching under Philip’s arm, and Philip, too, is taking a groggy look around, watching Max pick himself up and go outside. Seeing that he’s disturbed literally everyone, Evan is immediately apologetic, and does his best to put himself back where he was. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he mutters, touching his forehead to Philip’s and then to Jake’s as he lays back down, as gently as he can. “I’ve spoiled things, haven’t I. I’m sorry.” 

“S’okay,” mumbles Jake, letting his arm come to rest over Evan’s side as he stretches and settles again, with Philip, as ever, nuzzling his hair. “Maxie’s good, huh.” 

“Yeah.” Evan yawns, putting his head down. “Yeah, he’s… he’s alright, isn’t he.”

And then it’s all quiet again, and Jake thinks, right in that moment, that perhaps he  _ does _ understand about that so-called “greater kind of wealth”. 

They’re thwarting him. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a joke in here somewhere about Max being the biggest little brother Jake’s ever heard of, but I’m too tired to string it together properly. You'll have to work that one out for yourselves. Sorry.

_The bobcat is a small but powerful predator._

“Max, where’s the Man-Cub?”

_Though only a little bigger than a domestic cat, it is capable of taking down prey many times larger than itself._

“... I don’t know.”

_It thrives in wooded areas with plenty of cover, where its exceptional stealth allows it to stalk and ambush its prey with deadly efficiency._

“You’re a bad liar, Max. What’s going on?”

_Now observe, as this deadly, perfectly-adapted killing machine..._

“Y’know, I’m doin’ real good at writin’ right now. You shouldn’t be diss’ractin’ me.”

_...the product of thousands of years of evolutionary success..._

Evan’s mask is as blank as it’s ever been, but the thoroughly deadpan stare that he gives as Max beams up at him from where he’s sat in the grass with his magazines and charcoal still manages to come through somehow, and only moreso as he turns expectantly to Philip, sitting at Max’s side, and watches him innocently glance away, avoiding his gaze.

_...homes in on its unsuspecting quarry…_

“... Alright. So there’s a shenanigan afoot, then.”

At last, Evan turns his back to cast a highly suspicious look around the clearing -

_… and strikes!_

\- and Jake, with the fiercest yell he can muster, comes flying out of the long grass he’s been hiding in by the treeline to sprint at him for a leaping tackle. It’s barely enough to knock Evan the slightest bit off balance, and Evan, having no doubt been anticipating something like this, receives him playfully.

“Oh, you wanna fight me!?” As Jake dangles from his back, Evan, laughing, reaches for his ankle. “You wanna fight me, do you!? I’ll fight you! I’ll fight you, you little goblin! C’mere!”

There’s no contest at all, of course, because there never is, and it’s mere moments before Evan has Jake caught under his arm. With Max and Philip happily sitting by and watching, having been complicit in the whole thing - and with Max guffawing just about as loudly as he can all the while - Jake struggles and wrestles with everything he’s got to absolutely no avail, and he can only laugh too as he gets his hair vigorously ruffled.

“You little terror! Still wanna fight!? Still wanna fight me now, Man-Cub!?”

“No! No!” Jake, kicking uselessly and fighting to speak through his laughter, tries vainly to grab Evan’s massive hand to stop him from ruining his already messy hair any further. “I give up! I give up!”

Alas, it’s far too late. Jake’s jet black mop is hopelessly dishevelled, and Evan, looking at him after he’s put him down, gives an amused snort at his handiwork. Max thinks it’s funny, too; he’s still grinning and hiccupping as he and and Philip make their way over, and Jake, only having the faintest idea of just how untidy he must be, can’t help but grin back at him.

Philip, however, is not nearly so tickled, and sternly swats Evan’s hand away when he goes to give Jake another hefty tousle.

“Oh. Oh dear.” Evan straightens up, trying not to chuckle. “Am I in trouble?”

“Aw, c’mon!” Tugging on Philip’s wrist, Jake endeavors to soothe his ire. “Don’t be mad! I was a shitty mess in the first place, it’s not a big deal!”

This is not, it would appear, the positive angle that Jake assumes it to be. Philip, placing his hands on his hips, gives an exasperated shake of his head, furrowing his brow at him, and Jake worries, then, if Evan might not be the only one who’s in trouble. Not that being in trouble with Philip amounts to much, mind you, but it’s still enough for Jake to dip his head, and even Max has gone quiet, although he’s still smiling.

They’re all rescued from any consequences that there might otherwise be, though, by the timely appearance of the campfire’s light in the woods, and Evan wastes no time in taking the opportunity to hastily excuse himself, despite only having just woken up from his regular nap after returning home from his last ‘shift’ a little while ago. Evidently, he’s more fearful of incurring Philip’s wrath than he is of the work; Jake’s not sure he’s ever seen him leave so fast.

It’s perhaps somewhat unsurprising, then, that Philip isn’t particularly pleased. Jake is still a scruffy, unkempt mess, after all, and Philip shortly takes it upon himself to solve the problem. Once Max is settled back down with his handwriting practice - and he’s all too happy to get stuck back into it, encouraged by the success he’s been having and the improvement that comes with it - Philip is ducking into the shack to look for things, and he reappears soon enough with some string, and something else, a comb.

Jake wonders, but doesn’t ask, about why Philip would have the thing. The only one amongst them who has any hair at all, at least before Jake arrived, is Max, and even he has barely any to speak of. The comb looks to be made of bone, and Jake decides against spending too long reflecting upon where that bone might have come from. There are plenty of dead cows lying about the Nightmare, all of them with plenty of perfectly good bones, and that’s explanation enough for him.

In any case, it’s fortunate that they’ve got it now, and before long, they’re sat crosslegged in the grass with Max, Jake doing his best to remember how to make a cat’s cradle by himself while Philip sits behind him, gently teasing out the tangles in his hair until he can get the comb through it well enough to properly tidy him up, pausing every now and then to reach around him and help him when he gets into difficulty with the string around his fingers. Jake is so focused on figuring the puzzle out that it takes him a little while to notice that his hair isn’t in his face anymore, and even then, it’s only because of the firm but gentle tug that he feels as Philip ties it up at the back.

There’s a few bits, right at the front of Jake’s hairline, which aren’t quite long enough to make it into the tidy bun that Philip has made of it, but it’s still a vast improvement, and Jake, pleasantly surprised by how much easier it is to see without his hair in front of his eyes, turns around to grin at him. Philip is just as pleased, and cocks his head for a moment before gathering Jake up into a hug, pulling him into his lap to do it.

It happens often enough that Jake barely blinks at it. He’s perfectly content to sit there and be held, cuddling up to Philip and getting himself comfortable as he continues to fidget with his now somewhat frayed cat’s cradle. Admittedly, once you’ve got the hang of a cat’s cradle and fooled around with it a bit, there’s not much else you can do with it - most of the fun is in learning how to do it in the first place - but that’s not really the point for Jake anymore, so much as having something to do with his hands while Philip fusses over him and sings to him.

Well. Jake calls it “singing”, anyway. Philip can’t sing. He can’t sing, can’t talk; whilst he’s certainly not wholly without a voice, Philip is very limited in the sounds he can make. But, every time he has Jake like this, Jake has come to notice, there’s a very specific little set of noises that come out, hums and mumbles and soft chattering, and he’s never heard Philip vocalise like that at any other time. They’re comfort noises. Philip’s happy. Jake’s happy too, and much moreso for being “sung” to.

Philip’s unambiguous, generously-given affection is a marvellous thing to have grown accustomed to.

Coming to that, Jake is still deeply amused by the exchange that took place some time earlier; there’d been a similar scene playing out then, too, and Max asked Evan, with earnest curiosity, “How come Philip’s gotta be holdin’ the Man-Cub all the time?”

To his credit, Evan was very thoughtful about it. It would have been very easy to say that Philip does it because he loves him, but nobody ever really hugs Max or cuddles him unless he asks for it, and as true as it might be that that’s only because Max doesn’t really seem to _like_ being held like that unless it’s on his own terms, an answer like that might have implied that Philip didn’t love Max as much. This couldn’t be further from reality, of course; they all love Max to pieces, but it would have been difficult to explain properly, and instead, Evan simply replied:

“Well, the Man-Cub needs it, doesn’t he. Because he’s the smallest.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing, as if it were a basic fact of life. “That’s how you get big and strong, isn’t it. From people lovin’ you and lookin’ after you.”

“Huh.” And Max, bless him, just _accepted it as fact,_ giving it a good mulling over. “... Is that why I got so big after I got here? ‘Cause you guys love me ‘n’ look after me?”

“Yes, Maxie. That is why. And now that you’re big, it’s your turn to help look after others, isn’t it.”

“Huh. Yeah, I guess so.” He’d seemed satisfied with that. “Does that mean the Man-Cub’s gonna get big, too?”

“Ah, haha.” Evan just chuckled. “I don’t think he’s gonna get much bigger than he is, Maxie. But he’s already stronger than he was, isn’t he?”

Thinking about it, Jake supposes Evan was right about that. He _feels_ stronger, at least, or it might just be that he feels _better._ Is there a difference? As he sits there, resting his head against Philip’s shoulder and getting his hair nuzzled, he reflects that perhaps there isn’t, or there might as well not be. He lifts his head up, hoping to better facilitate the aforementioned nuzzles, and Philip tenderly brushes aside a few of those stray hairs that didn’t quite stay tied up to tuck them behind Jake’s ear, and kisses him - actually, really kisses him - very gently and very quietly on the temple.

As soon as he realises what it was, which, admittedly, does take a moment, given that nobody’s kissed him for goodness knows how long, Jake feels his face getting hot, but he’s quick to quell the nervous laugh that tries to come out of him. It’s not that he minds, not at all, in fact he’s even happier to be kissed than he might have imagined he would be, now that it’s happened, but it’s hard not to feel embarrassed. He’s a grown-ass man, damn it, mostly, more or less, almost. He’s supposed to be _tough_ and _manly_ and what have you. He’s not supposed to _enjoy_ getting kissed.

But Max is sitting _right there,_ and Max doesn’t need to learn that kind of baggage.

The one silver lining behind the grotesque, despicable misfortune of Max’s life is that, at the very least, he didn’t grow up steeped in that nasty shit. He doesn’t think he’s supposed to _be_ anything; he’s free of it, and it would be supremely cruel to squander that small kindness by teaching him otherwise, even if only by example. No, absolutely not. Max is free of it, and he ought to remain free of it. Christ knows it might be the only freedom he really has.

Besides, it’s all stupid, isn’t it, for crying out loud. Jake is a grown-ass man, damn it, mostly, more or less, almost, and he can do whatever the fuck he likes. If he wants to get kissed, then he’ll get kissed, and if anybody has anything to say about it, they can try him.

Jake puts his arms around Philip’s neck to hug him and kiss him back, and, for his trouble, gets vigorously cuddled in turn. He thinks he hears Max laugh, but it’s hard to say when he’s being squeezed tightly enough to put his scarf around his ears. Philip is all but purring with joy, and, amidst it all, Jake hears the gentle _‘ou-wh’_ sound that he’s come to recognise as Philip’s pet name for him. Philip’s voice is raspy and harsh, but that little _‘ou-wh’_ is a rare sound that he can make softly, that he can whisper. As a pet name, it’s wonderful.

Whilst it may be true that Philip can’t talk, he’s far from being unable to speak. Even without the luxury of words, he’s taken what he does have and wrought a language of his own from it, and it’s a language that Jake has been all too pleased to learn.

 _Ou-wh. Ou-wh._ It’s a marvellous sound. Jake could listen to it all night.

Philip does finally let Jake go in the end, though, when Max asks him if he can write, too.

“Huh? Me?” Jake, still very much under Philip’s watchful eye, shuffles up next to Max in the grass. “Sure I can. Wanna see?”

“Yeah!” Max eagerly offers his charcoal and a mostly-clean page. “Are you good at it?”

“I ought to be,” Jake remarks, taking them. “I spent half my damn life learning how to do it right.”

Probably more than that, actually, when he thinks about it.

“Wow!” As ever, Max is easily impressed. “You must be _real_ good at it!”

“Haha.”

 _Not by choice,_ Jake inwardly remarks, as he adjusts his grip on the unwieldy stub of charcoal and puts it to the paper.

 _THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG,_ he writes, when nothing else comes readily to mind.

“You write so small!” Max leans in, fascinated. “An’ it’s so tidy! You didn’t even smudge it or nothin’! How’d you do that!?”

“I got a lot of practice,” replies Jake, wholly unable to keep the smile from his face. “I wrote a whole lot every day for years and years.”

“... That sounds hard.”

“Yeah, yeah, you know,” Jake says, with a sigh, “It was, but… It’s not bad to do hard things when you get something out of it at the end, is it.”

“That’s true. I guess I better practice more, huh?”

“That’s the only way to do it, Maxie.”

“Okay! But you’ll practice with me, right? I wanna see how you do it.”

“Haha, okay.”

This is the kind of quality time Max likes to spend. He might not be a big fan of the kind of physical affection that Philip tends towards - and, considering how long they’ve all been here, Philip has probably been desperate for someone to lavish that affection upon for a good while - but he’s very happy indeed when they’re all sitting side by side and doing something together.

Of course, the only trouble with that is that they’re soon running out of charcoal. It disappears far more quickly when there’s two of them using it, and Philip, seeing that it’ll shortly all be gone, obligingly stands up and goes to start a fire to make some more. It’ll take a while, but they have both the wood and the time that it takes to make the stuff in abundance. Even if the same can’t be said for many other things in the Nightmare, they can have as much charcoal as they like.

Sure enough, it’s not much longer until the last couple of pieces have been written and scribbled and doodled and smudged away, rubbed into fine black dust on pages and fingertips, and the fire that Philip’s started is still small, nowhere near hot enough to make anything with. After a moment’s consideration, Jake taps Max on the shoulder, getting to his feet.

“C’mon, man. Let’s go help Philip find some good branches to burn.”

“Okay.”

As confusing and nonsensical as the Nightmare so often is, at the very least, they know they’ll never run out of firewood: all one has to do is turn his back for a heartbeat or two and the branches he just tore down and threw on the fire will be right back there on the trees. As far as Jake can tell, it’s simply the nature of the Nightmare to be constant and unchanging, and so, every time they try to alter it, say, by snapping the good branches off the trees and taking them for the fire, for example, or by ripping the corrugated steel off a rooftop to build a makeshift shelter with it, the Nightmare simply reverts back to its default state the next time nobody’s looking. It makes sense, in a way; if _him upstairs_ had to fix everything they all broke by himself, he’d likely never have time to do anything else.

As he and Max set about gathering the wood, Jake briefly meets eyes with Philip, over on the other side of the clearing. There has, quite understandably, been no sign of Myers for a good while now, but Philip is keeping half an eye on them regardless, and Jake waves to him to let him know they’re alright and to put him at ease. He waves back, and, content, goes on about his business.

The harsh calls of the crows, however, sitting in some higher branches just beyond the treeline, soon catch Jake’s attention, and Max’s too, when Jake turns to look at him. He’s lingering there, watching them, and Jake is quick to reach out and catch his wrist before he can decide to chase them.

“Just ignore ‘em, Maxie. They’re only trying to get you into trouble.”

The crows _hate_ Max. They _hate_ him. And not without good reason, either: Jake’s heard all about how Max used to chase them - and very occasionally catch and eat them, usually alive and whole - back when he first arrived in the Nightmare, and if there’s anything that Jake knows about crows, it’s that they don’t quickly forget things. That, and that if you make an enemy of one crow, you’ll be making enemies of all of its friends, too. They frequently try to goad Max into chasing them into the woods, purely so that he’ll get lost in them and have to spend a good while wandering around alone and afraid. It’s thoroughly spiteful and vindictive.

They caw and shout and rattle all the louder as Jake tries to lead Max away, furious that they’re being denied the opportunity to trick him, two of the three even hopping down to the ground to make themselves seem like easier targets. Max is pulling away now. Jake can feel him resisting the grasp he’s got around his wrist, and he’s looking around for a stone to throw at the birds and frighten them away with when he sees one of the pair on the ground making a very elaborate act of being injured, dragging its wing as it flaps around in the grass, just at the edge of the shadows that shroud the deeper woods.

“It’s pretending, Max. It’s just gonna fly away the second you get near it. Just ignore ‘em. C’mon.”

He won’t come.

“Max, c’mon, leave it.”

It’s no surprise, really. Before he got here, Max was more than likely eating birds and the like just to stay alive. Even someone with a reasonable degree of impulse control would struggle to shake off that kind of long term trauma, and Max, with the issues he has, doesn’t stand a chance.

“Max. Don’t.”

Christ, that bird is really laying it on thick. Every now and then it’ll make a convincing display of trying and failing to get off the ground, flopping about all over the place and making a racket doing it. With the others in the grass and up in the tree fully committing to the charade as well, hopping and bobbing around and looking _ever so_ distressed about their “crippled” friend, it’s altogether quite a show.

It proves too much for Max, who pulls away from Jake so effortlessly that he may as well not have been there at all.

“Max!” As he bolts, Jake chases after him without a second thought. “Max! Come back!”

Needless to say, the crows, predictably, disappear into the woods the instant Max comes remotely close, and he and Jake are left standing there like fools while the birds’ mocking calls echo through the trees around them. Still, they didn’t go far from the treeline. It shouldn’t be a big deal to just turn around and -

\- _Oh._

They looked away. They looked away from the treeline, and now, as Jake peers through the darkness, searching for it, it’s nowhere in sight. That’s all it fucking takes, in this place. All you have to do is look away.

There’s no sign of Philip, either. Shit.

Max is already looking fearful, his head lowering as he casts a few wary glances over his shoulders, arms slowly closing around himself. As always, he’s fast realising his mistake, but it’s far too late, and he flinches as the crows reappear in the boughs above he and Jake, their hoarse, grating cries beginning to sound unsettlingly like laughter. As Max hugs himself and whimpers, it soon becomes more than Jake can stand. He grits his teeth, unable to bear the crows’ noise any longer.

“Fuck you!” Grabbing a stone, he hurls it at the jeering birds with all his might. “Shut the fuck up! Assholes! He wouldn’t chase you if you didn’t do this!”

The stone hits the branch the birds are perched on hard enough to scare them off it, and they quickly scatter into the treetops, still calling as they go. With them gone, Jake and Max are left alone, and the woods are dark, cold and silent.

“It’ll be okay, Maxie.” Jake places his hand on Max’s arm as gently as he can. “We’ve just gotta walk and we’ll get home. It’ll be okay.”

However, Max doesn’t reply, and instead simply slumps to the ground at the base of the nearest tree, putting his head down and hugging his knees.

“Why’m I so fuckin’ stupid?” He sniffles. “God damn it. You even said so ‘n’ I still did it.”

“Aw, Maxie, it’s okay. You couldn’t help it,” Jake tells him, kneeling down at his side to touch his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. And you’re not stupid, man! Remember how well you were doing when we were sat writing earlier?”

“I _am_ stupid!” cries Max, pulling away from him. “I am! You told me not to do it ‘n’ I still did it! Why did I do that!?”

Well, there _is_ a reason, but Jake’s not sure he’s qualified to explain it, much less in a way that Max will understand. Still, he feels as though he ought to tell Max _something._ He should at least try.

“Well, Maxie, uh.” He shifts his weight to sit down quietly next to him. “We’ve all got our little quirks, haven’t we, y’know, stuff we’re not so good at. Like how Evan gets mad too quickly when he’s tired, right? It’d be good if that didn’t happen too, but he’s sore and cranky, isn’t he. He can’t help it. And you can’t help it either, it’s just one of those things.”

“Evan tries so hard, though,” mutters Max, wiping his tears on the back of his hand. “An’ he’s got so much better, he don’t get mad nearly as bad as he used to. Why don’t I ever get better?”

“You have! Those birds were really trying to get you, man! It’s not like you went for ‘em straight away!”

“But I still fell for it! I fall for it every fuckin’ time!”

“And that’s okay! It’s okay, Maxie! Look.” Jake looks up at him, and gives his shoulder a little squeeze, trying his hardest to channel some of Philip’s soothing presence as he does so. “Look. Okay, so, that’s a limitation that you have, it’s something you’re not so good at. It just means that we’ve gotta give you a little extra help with it, that’s all. As long as you keep doing your best - and you _were_ doing your best, right?”

Max sniffles again, and nods.

“That’s what I thought,” says Jake, nodding too. “As long as you keep doing your best, that’s all anybody can ask of you, okay? We’ve just gotta figure out what you’re not so good at, and then the rest of us can help you when you need it. Right?”

“I guess.”

“It was those birds, man. They know you’re not so good at this stuff too, and they took advantage, didn’t they. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t your fault.”

He gets no response to that, other than an indistinct but dejected murmur, and he supposes that it might be best, for the time being, to just let Max cry for a while. Jake can remember, vaguely, being a lot younger and a lot smaller himself, and always being hurried along to the next distraction any time he started to look as if he might be about to cry, anything to stop him from making too much noise or shedding too many tears. Goodness knows Max doesn’t need to feel as if he’s doing anything else wrong right now, and Jake, shuffling right up next to him, puts an arm around him, trying to offer a little comfort while he gets on with it.

“It’s okay, Maxie. It’s okay. You go ahead and cry, buddy. I’m here.”

At the very least, it might help him to know that he’s not lost by himself this time.

The temptation is to start telling Max that getting home will be easy. After all, all they have to do is pick a direction and start walking, and they’ll get there eventually. On reflection, though, Jake recalls far too many times when people older and wiser than himself told him that the things he was struggling with were “easy”, and, looking back, he can’t call to mind many occasions where their telling him that actually _helped._ Rather, it tended to make him feel bad for struggling in the first place.

It made him feel stupid.

For the most part, “Look, it’s easy!” was a phrase that he heard from his parents and his older brother, when he needed them to explain something to him, homework, more often than not, and they hadn’t really had the time or the patience for him. _Look, it’s easy, just do it like this._ And then they’d give a very hurried demonstration, offer no explanation for it at all, and then leave him to continue struggling by himself, regardless of whether he’d grasped the concept or not. Now that he thinks about it, Jake isn’t sure how he did well enough in his studies to get into college at all.

Still. Besides the point. Irrelevant. Telling Max that getting home will be “easy” is unlikely to be very helpful or comforting, and Jake wonders what he ought to be saying instead.

What would have been more helpful to him back then?

“... Max?”

Max gives a loud, wet sniffle, and looks ruefully down at him.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve gotta go home. C’mon.” Jake nudges him. “Let’s get going.”

“I don’t wanna go home.”

“Aw, Maxie. How come?”

“... I don’t wanna.”

“Are you scared that Philip’s gonna be mad at you because you messed up?”

He nods.

“It’s okay, Maxie. You know Philip never really gets mad at anybody, right? And he’ll know it’s not your fault. Look, when we get back, I’ll tell him what those birds did, and he’ll agree with me that it wasn’t your fault. He will.”

“What about Evan, though?”

“Max, believe me,” Jake tells him, grinning, “If Philip says it’s not your fault, then Evan won’t have anything to say about it, either. Evan thinks he’s in charge around here, but you and me both know that it’s really Philip calling the shots, don’t we.”

At that, Max gives the faintest chuckle, and Jake’s grin grows all the wider.

“Yeah, see? You know I’m right. C’mon, let’s get back, okay?”

“I’m scared.”

“I know, man. I know. But that’s okay! You’re brave, you can do scary things. And, I’m with you, aren’t I? Maybe it’ll be tough and scary, but that’s okay. We can do it, can’t we.”

“Mhm.”

It’s a little while longer until Max settles enough to actually get up, but Jake is content to let him take his time. There’s no point in rushing him, is there, and they’re walking soon enough. Max still isn’t terribly happy about the predicament they’re in - he’s very quiet and doesn’t want to talk - but they’ve got him moving, that’s the main thing, and now Jake can work on trying to perk him up a bit.

“Hey Max, d’you wanna sing?”

“No.”

“Aw, c’mon, singing made walking more fun last time, didn’t it?”

“I said no!”

“Okay, okay.” Jake drops the topic easily. “Well, do you wanna hold my hand? Would that help?”

“... Okay.”

“C’mere, then. C’mon.”

As Max’s hand closes around his own, Jake doesn’t fail to notice the effort he’s making to be gentle. Even for his size, Max’s hands are almost disproportionately big, although along with his long, gangly limbs, he’s pretty oddly proportioned in general. Walking alongside him and keeping pace with him is more than a little awkward, not least because of the difference in height between them and Max’s characteristic lopsided gait, but if Max can do his best to be gentle for Jake’s sake, then the least Jake can do is stick with him.

It’s all he would have wanted, back when he was a needy, inconvenient child.

And Max does begin to talk, after they’ve been walking in silence for a while.

“... Man-Cub?”

“Yeah, Maxie?”

“How come you had to learn to write so much?”

“It’s what everybody’s supposed to do, Maxie.”

“Is it?”

“Mhm. When you’re little, you’re supposed to learn to read and write and count and all kinds of stuff like that.”

“... Oh.”

Hearing the drop in Max’s tone, Jake hurries to reassure him.

“That’s why we’re teaching you now, isn’t it,” he tells him, giving his hand an encouraging shake. “We’re taking care of you now, so we’re teaching you. Better late than never, right?”

“I guess.”

“Hey. Hey.” Jake insists, quickening his stride just enough to get a step or two ahead of Max and put himself in his line of sight, still holding his hand. “Look at me, man. Look at me. It’s not your fault that you never learned before, okay? The people who were taking care of you before were supposed to teach you, but they didn’t, because they were shitty. Them, not you. _Them._ Okay?”

“... You think?”

“Fuck yeah, I do! They were shitty, shitty people, Max, and now we’ve gotta clean up the mess they made, you and me, and Evan and Philip, all of us.”

“... Man-Cub?”

“Yeah?”

“... D’you think they could’a helped it?”

“What?”

“D’you think they could’a helped bein’ so shitty?”

Bless Max. Bless his fucking soul. Even after everything, he’s willing to give those assholes the benefit of the doubt, just because that’s what the people who take care of him now do for him. Christ knows he’s been told that he can’t help things often enough tonight.

“I’m pretty sure they could have,” replies Jake, plainly. “I think they could have _very easily_ helped it.”

“Y’think?”

“Oh, yeah, for sure. They had to go outta their way to be as shitty as they were, man. They _chose_ to treat you like that.”

“But why, though?”

Once again, Jake looks up at Max as they come to a stop amongst the trees. With no path to follow, the trees around the pair are densely packed and seem to go on forever in every direction, and only a few weak, shimmering slivers of blue-white moonlight make it through to the ground. Even in this darkness, though, Jake can see Max’s face twisting into a pained, anxious frown as he wrestles with this question that has no doubt plagued him for most - if not all - of his life.

And, once again, Jake knows he isn’t qualified to answer it, not by a long shot. After a moment’s reflection, as he grapples with the question himself, he takes Max’s hand in both of his own and holds it tight.

“I don’t know,” he tells him, sadly meeting eyes with him. “I don’t know, Maxie. Even if you weren’t what they wanted, it wouldn’t explain what they did to you. But it doesn’t matter, okay? It’s not your job to figure their bullshit out. You’ve got us now, and we’ll take care of you no matter what.”

“But what if sometime I’m not what _you_ want anymore?”

Jake can feel Max’s hand beginning to tremble, see that frown pulling harder at the corners of his mouth and the tears welling up in his eyes again, and in that instant, he understands Max’s fears perfectly. He’d grown up with that fear hanging over him like the sword of fucking Damocles, and he’s not surprised to see that the threat of winding up unwanted because he turns out to be somehow _not_ _good enough_ terrifies Max just as much as it terrified him before it finally drove him out of his parents’ home.

Shit. What was it that Evan said, back when they visited Lisa before?

“... It doesn’t matter if you’re not what we want,” Jake tells Max, firmly. “You’re not here to be what anybody wants. You’re here to be _you,_ okay? And whatever you decide you wanna be, we’ll help you get there. That’s what we’re here for. We all help each other, don’t we.”

Max swallows, and nods quietly as he rubs the tears out of his eyes on the wrist of his free hand.

“I mean…” Jake glances around for a moment, wondering how to word what he wants to say. “... Jesus, Max, nobody can be what other people want them to be all the time, that’s, it’s impossible. Nobody can do that. Hell, Evan’s not what you want him to be all the time, is he?”

“No.” Max sniffs loudly. “Sometimes he’s too tired.”

“Sometimes he’s too tired, exactly. But we still want him, don’t we? Even when he’s tired, we still want him, right?”

“Mhm.”

“So it’s the same for you, Maxie! Sometimes you do stuff that makes trouble for everyone else, and it’s not… _the most fun_ to pick up after that, but, y’know, it happens, right? We still _want_ you, man. That’s how this works, isn’t it, we all do our best, and because we know everybody else is doing their best too, we forgive each other when mistakes happen, don’t we.”

“Yeah.”

“So don’t worry, okay?” He gives Max’s hand a squeeze. “Just keep doing your best.”

“Okay.” Max pauses, and looks sheepishly at Jake. “... I’m sorry I got us in trouble, Man-Cub.”

“It’s okay, Maxie. It’s nothing we can’t fix, right?”

This time, when Jake smiles at him, Max manages to smile back.

“Right.”

“Besides,” says Jake, brightening, “We won’t be in trouble much longer if we keep walking, will we.”

And at that, Max’s smile grows into a big, wobbly grin.

“Nope!”

“Come on, then. Let’s go. D’you wanna sing?”

“Yeah! Teach me a new song, Man-Cub!”

“Haha, okay.”

Jake already knows that Maxie likes the songs that you can yell, and it doesn’t take him long to remember a good one. Making a hearty racket is a great time all by itself, of course, but it’s even better when you’re doing it with a song that you like.

 _“It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you!_  
_There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do!_  
_I bless the rains down in Africa!”_

They’re part way through the second pass of that chorus when Jake’s foot sinks into the mud and gets stuck there, and his sudden silence catches Max’s attention instantly. He’s quick to pull Jake out and put him on his shoulders, just as he saw Philip do before, but the presence of the mud can only mean one thing.

“I guess we’re gonna go see Lisa,” Jake remarks with a grin, and Max, already beaming too, nods eagerly.

They’d been walking at a fair pace before, but Max is _excited_ now, and happily trots along through the increasingly sodden woods, making a satisfyingly wet splash with every quickened step. Sure enough, bit by bit, the woods gradually become less dense as they go, until they give way altogether to the now familiar swamp, with its tall reeds, muddy water and wrecked pier and, beyond them all, the Pale Rose, shrouded in a low, thick fog, and Jake can only hang on for dear life as Max breaks into a sprint towards it, forgetting to let him off his back before he bolts.

“Lisa!” Max is calling for her before they’ve even got there. “Lisa! Are you home!?”

“Maxie?” Lisa appears presently, shuffling out onto the deck and sounding just as chipper as ever. “Is that you? Has my Maxie come to see me?”

Max finally comes to a stop when they reach the Rose, and Jake, shaken and breathless but still beaming from ear to ear, slides off his back and just barely manages not to fall over when his feet hit the waterlogged ground.

“Hi, Lisa!” Max is quick to come to meet her, hurrying up the ramp to join her and kneel down for his hug and a kiss. “Bet’cha weren’t expectin’ to see us, huh?”

“I wasn’t!” Lisa chuckles, obliging him. “And where are Evan and Philip? Aren’t they with you today?”

“Nope!” Max shakes his head. “We got here on accident!” he proudly announces. “I got us lost, and we were tryin’a walk home, see, but now we’re here instead!”

“Oh! Oh, well, I see! Well,” says Lisa, patting him lovingly on the cheek, “It’s lovely to see you, Maxie. And you’ve still got your Man-Cub with you,” she affectionately observes, as Jake makes his way up onto the deck, too. “That _is_ good. I was so worried that I would only get to meet you once,” she tells Jake, with a leathery smile. “I’m glad you’re still with us, dear. You’re looking very well-kept today; Philip tidied your hair, did he?”

“Haha, he did, thanks.” Jake laughs, relieved to find himself far less afraid of her this time around. “And believe me, I’m glad I’m still here, too.”

“Well, come along.” Lisa gently ushers them both properly onto the boat. “We must get the table out and have a good talk while we can, mustn’t we. I expect Evan and Philip are waiting for you to come home,” she remarks, warmly, “But I’m sure it won’t hurt if I keep you for a little while, will it.”

So, the table comes out, and the three of them sit down for a chat. As always, Max has plenty to tell about, and Lisa is more than content to listen to it all. Jake, too, is quite satisfied to let Max do all of the talking, but it does mean that the conversation soon turns to how he and Jake have wound up coming to visit in the first place. As happy an accident as it’s been, Max is still upset with himself for having got them lost.

“I’m always causin’ trouble,” he laments, as Lisa pats him sympathetically on the back. “An’ now I gone ‘n’ got the Man-Cub in trouble, too! Evan ‘n’ Philip must be gettin’ real tired’a me.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Lisa tells him. “They love you, Maxie. We all do.”

“But everybody’s always pickin’ up after me!” Max sighs, and slumps on the table. “I ain’t worth the trouble I cause.”

“Come on, Max, that’s not true.” Jake scoots the crate he’s sitting on a little nearer so he can reach Max’s shoulder more easily. “You’re plenty worth it! You try your best, right? Hell, just think of all the times you’ve gone and done the work instead of Evan so he can sleep longer!”

“I still don’t do half’a what he does, though,” mutters Max. “An’ he don’t go around makin’ messes for other people to clean up all the time.”

“Well.” Lisa, too, shuffles closer. “Some people need more help than others, Maxie. That’s just how it is. And it’s not a bad thing to be someone who needs more help, either,” she adds, hearing Max huff at that. “You do as much as you can, don’t you, dear?”

He nods, but doesn’t look any happier about it, and Lisa, seeing that some further explanation is required, gives him another little pat on the back before getting up and shuffling off to find something in the boat’s hold.

When she returns, it’s with a hefty jar of… well, Jake’s not sure what they are. They’re small, round, shrivelled things, marble-sized and a kind of pinkish brown, and when Lisa opens the jar, which might be half as tall as she is, and offers it, Jake eyes them pensively before casting her a worried glance.

“It’s alright, dear.” Perhaps understanding his concern, she’s quick to reassure him. “They’re just seed pods, they won’t bite you. Get yourself a big handful, that’s it.”

Once Jake has reached into the jar and taken as many of the pods as he can hold in one hand - and he’s relieved to discover that they’re blessedly far more solid and dry than he’d been fearing they would be - Lisa turns to Max, asking him to do the same, and then finally scoops out as good a handful as she can get herself before putting the jar aside and sitting back down. They’re then left with three wildly differing heaps of these ugly little seed pods on the table: Jake’s managed to grab a dozen or so, maybe a few more than that, while Max, having far bigger hands, might have twice that many. Lisa, on the other hand, with her long claws and bony fingers, not particularly well suited to picking up fiddly things like the seed pods, has only eight on the table in front of her.

“Well, isn’t that interesting.” Lisa waves one of those claws over the table. “We all have different, don’t we.”

“That’s ‘cause we all have different hands!” Max astutely observes, sounding quite pleased with himself for having noticed it.

“That’s right, we do, don’t we.” Lisa nods. “Now then,” she says, “This is something that was shown to me when I was a little girl, and now I’m going to show you, alright, dear? Let’s say that these are _helping beans,_ and we use them to help each other and ourselves. Do you understand so far, Maxie?”

“Mhm.” Max nods, listening intently. “I get it. So what do we do with ‘em?”

“Well,” Lisa tells him, “We have to decide how many we put into the middle to help each other with, and how many to keep for ourselves, don’t we. It’s important that we help each other as much as we can, but we have to keep enough to help ourselves with as well.”

“Okay.”

“Now, Man-Cub.” Delicately lacing her talon-like fingers, she turns to Jake. “How many helping beans do you think we should each be putting into the middle, dear?”

“Oh, uh.”

Jake, not having expected to be given an active role in this little game, has to pause to consider for a moment. He looks down at the gathered seed pods on the table in front of him, and, after some brief thought, separates them roughly in half to push seven into the middle.

“Is that okay?” he asks, looking back at Lisa.

“If you think so, dear.” She smiles at him. “Alright, Maxie. How many is that? Can you count out that many, too?”

Max, it turns out, is surprisingly good at counting, and, when he thinks about it, Jake supposes that it makes sense. He wouldn’t be nearly as effective in trials if he couldn’t count how many Survivors were running about, how many generators they’d got running or not, or how many times he’d managed to catch them, amongst other things. He might not know what the numbers are called, or even that they _have_ names, but he knows how many seven is, and he doesn’t struggle to match Jake’s little contribution out of his own heap of “beans”.

Although Max still has most of his heap left over after doing it, when Lisa does the same, she’s left with only one lonely little seed pod, and straight away, Jake sees Max notice, his head tilting in the way that it tends to do when the cogs inside it are starting to turn in earnest. When Lisa turns to him to ask him if he thinks the way they’ve divvied up their helping beans is fair, he’s evidently still trying to process it, and both she and Jake wait quietly for him to work it out.

After a good stretch of sitting there with his finger in his mouth, Max straightens up.

“... It’s fair in the middle,” he eventually replies, “‘Cause we all put in the same, but…” He frowns. “But you ain’t hardly got none left at all, an’ I still got so many. That ain’t fair.”

“I agree,” Lisa remarks, with a nod. “It’s not fair, is it. I think there’s a better way to do it, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think, Man-Cub?”

“I think so, too.” Jake’s been onto Lisa’s plan from the start, but he’ll play along for Max’s sake. “Like this, it’s only fair to me, and unless everybody’s the exactly same as I am, it’s not gonna be fair to them, is it.”

“But we ain’t the same.” Once more, Max’s insight is sagacious. “We all have different.”

“Let’s start again then,” suggests Lisa. “Let’s see if we can think of a better way to do it, so that it’s fair to everybody.”

So, the helping beans are taken back, and discussions are had on how to make the system fairer to all involved, even accounting for everybody’s differences. It doesn’t take too long for the three to come to the solution - or rather, for Max to come to the solution, with some subtle guidance from Lisa and Jake - that it would be much fairer if they all put half of their helping beans into the middle, and kept half for themselves.

“That way,” says Max, “We’d all’ve given the same away, even though we all have different. Right?”

“That’s a _very_ good idea, Maxie.” Lisa gives his hand an encouraging squeeze. “Let’s try that, then, shall we?”

Sure enough, the resulting bean distribution does look much more even.

“And look how many more beans there are in the middle!” Lisa points out. “Even after I put in fewer!”

“And now you got some left for yourself, too!” Max adds, brightly. “That’s a lot better! But y’know,” he says, “I think it could be even better’n that.”

“Yeah?” Jake leans in, with genuine interest. “How’s that, Maxie?”

Sitting up straight, Max, very tidily and with a great deal of purpose, proceeds to count out a few more beans from his remaining heap, which is still the biggest, and give them to Lisa. With that, her collection of beans looks much more like his and Jake’s, and, satisfied, he gives a big, wobbly grin.

“Oh, Maxie,” chuckles Lisa, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. “You’re such a good boy. We’re so lucky to have you. You see?” she asks, as he beams at her, “You’d do it for me, wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t we do the same for you?”

“And y’know,” says Jake, “What you just did there, that’s what Evan does for all of us, isn’t it? Maybe you can’t do as much as he does, because you and him are different, but you try just as hard, right?”

“... Is that why he’s so tired all the time?” Max, still getting fussed over, tilts his head again. “‘Cause he gives so much away and don’t leave enough for himself?”

“I think it just might be,” sighs Lisa, finally letting him be. “But you’re helping him as much as you can, aren’t you, dear. You and the Man-Cub both.”

“Uhuh!” He nods vigorously. “We’re doin’ our best, right, Man-Cub?”

“That’s right! And don’t forget Philip,” Jake reminds him. “He works hard to help all of us, too.”

“Oh, Philip is _so_ good, isn’t he?” The warmth in Lisa’s voice is tremendous and sincere. “He’s such a blessing.”

“He is, he really is.”

“Evan’d be real stuck without him, huh?”

“Y’know, I think we all would be.”

“True, true. And, speaking of Evan and Philip,” says Lisa, rapping her claws on the table, “I think it’s about time you two were getting back to them, don’t you?”

“Oh gee, yeah!” Max perks up at the reminder. “We gotta get home!”

“Yeah, we do,” agrees Jake, getting to his feet. “C’mon, Max. The sooner we get walking, the sooner we’ll get back.”

“Hopefully it’ll be all of you I get to see next time,” Lisa remarks, as she and Max stand up from the table as well. “Now, be good, won’t you, both of you.”

“We will!” Max only needs to be beckoned once to kneel down for another hug and a kiss. “An’ we’ll come back real soon!”

“Thank you for having us.” The line comes out of Jake’s mouth like a reflex, despite it having been so long since he’s had any need for it. “Uh.” He hesitates, realising what he’s just said. “... Do you want us to help you put the table away?”

“No, no, that’s alright, dear.” Lisa seems amused by the blatantly rehearsed pleasantry, at least. “And, you’re very welcome, Man-Cub. Run along now, and I’m sure I’ll see you both again soon.”

After a few more goodbyes are said - and Lisa, mercifully, is considerate enough to be satisfied only spending her hugs and kisses on Max - the pair trudge off through the swamp and back into the woods, waving as they go. It doesn’t matter which way they came from or which way they head off; petty things like directions don’t hold any weight in the Nightmare, and they’ll wind up in the same place eventually regardless.

The visit has been a fortuitous one, Jake reflects. Max is in much higher spirits than he was before they got there, and Lisa was much better able to explain matters to him than Jake could ever hope to be. Even though they’re well out of the mud now, Max is still carrying him on his shoulders, and they’re yell-singing for all they’re worth as they go; it’s a far cry from the miserable slog they were on before they stumbled into the swamp. As lost as they are, it’s a _good time,_ and certainly a better time than the fucking birds that caused all the trouble in the first place would want them having.

However, in the midst of all the merrymaking, something else catches Jake’s ear through the noise, and he quickly asks Max to be quiet for a second so he can listen.

He’s not sure if he really heard anything at all to begin with, but he wants to have heard it badly enough that he’s eager to give it the benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, Max stands there, as still and as quiet as he can be, and waits for Jake to tell him what’s out there. His hearing isn’t great at the best of times; he’s well used to taking cues from his fellows, and he patiently looks on as Jake hoists himself up as high as he can on his shoulders.

The woods are as silent as ever, and Jake strains his hearing for the faintest trace of the noise he thought he heard a moment ago.

_Ou-wh. Ou-wh._

There it is! That’s it! It’s raspy and harsh for no longer being a whisper, but it’s as sweet a sound as ever it was. He _knew_ he’d heard it, he _knew_ it, and a heartbeat later he’s clambering down from Max’s back to chase after it.

“C’mon! C’mon! I can hear Philip! We’re nearly home!”

Even as Jake sets off sprinting, following the sound of Philip’s voice through the trees, Max keeps pace with him easily, and it’s not long until he can hear Philip calling, too. Another few moments and they can see the shack through the trees, and then they’re barrelling past the treeline and into the clearing - where Philip and Evan are waiting for them.

Jake hears Max collide at speed with Evan more than he sees it; he’s far too busy flinging himself into Philip’s open arms and summarily being picked up and swung around and tossed, caught again and hugged.

_Ou-wh. Ou-wh. Ou-wh._

Philip’s voice is hoarse and worn. He must have been calling for a long time, and he must have been very, very worried - Jake can’t remember the last time he’s been cuddled and nuzzled and kissed and sung to so enthusiastically, by anyone, ever, and the next thing he knows is that he’s being gently but firmly crushed in the middle of a group hug that’s more like a particularly zealous scrum. Thank goodness Philip thinks to pick him up to keep him from getting caught underfoot.

“We saw Lisa!” he hears Max exclaim. “We counted some beans!”

“Did you, now?” Evan is laughing as he says it, thoroughly tickled. “Well, I hope you’ll see fit to let Philip and I come with you next time.”

“Yeah, she said you should come.” Max pauses for a moment, actually remembering why they wound up visiting Lisa at all. “... M’sorry I ran off. I got us both in trouble.”

“It wasn’t his fault, though.” Jake is quick to interject as Philip puts him down, now that there’s room enough to do so safely. “It was those fucking crows, man. They were teasing him.”

“Is that so?” asks Evan.

Philip nods. He saw, albeit too late to catch up when Max started running. At that, Evan folds his arms, grumbling.

“I’d snap the neck of every one of those fuckin’ birds if I thought there’d be any end to ‘em,” he mutters, irritably. “I’m sure him upstairs has put ‘em here to torment us.”

Despite his previous anxiety, Max is quickly forgiven for his slip-up. Evan and Philip are just relieved to have him and their Man-Cub back safely, and Max’s promise that he’ll try harder next time - or ask for help if he finds himself getting into difficulty - is more than enough to satisfy them both.

However, with the drama over and done with, they can all finally collect themselves somewhat, and Evan, listening to Max’s excitable account of his and Jake’s unplanned adventure, only notices that Jake’s hair has been tied up and made somewhat presentable when he goes to give him an affectionate ruffling and has to stop himself before he spoils Philip’s handiwork. Jake is looking a little windswept after recent events, but he’s still mostly tidy, and Evan looks at him with amused curiosity.

“So _that’s_ what you look like,” he chuckles, peering at him. “Well I never.”

His hand wavers for a few awkward seconds while he tries to figure out what he ought to do with it, before eventually settling for patting Jake lightly on the head. Jake grins at him. He shakes his head, and returns his attention to Max’s avid storytelling, which Philip, bless him, has been attentively nodding along to all the while.

In the end, Max has to be persuaded to stop and have a rest, although the most he can be convinced to do is stop talking. He’s still fizzy enough to want to play, and Evan, hoping to wear him out at least a bit, indulges him. Jake, however, requires no such persuasion at all to go and drop himself on the couch, and he gratefully curls up there. It’s been a long night. It’s always a long night, here.

He doesn’t intend to doze off, but, then again, a lot of things have happened without his intending for them tonight.

*

_Come along, my lad. This is no place for you to sleep._

*

When Jake comes around, he realises, shortly, that he isn’t on the couch. He’s in the shelter, and, not only that, but someone has _put him to bed,_ having laid one of Philip’s numerous sheets out flat over the hay underneath him and bundled up another for him to rest his head on, as well as putting another over him to keep him warm. They’ve even taken his hair down, for crying out loud.

He has to sit up and look at it for a moment or two to take it all in; his first thought is that it’s baffling that anyone would go to the trouble for him, but then he remembers who he’s living with, and it begins to make a little more sense.

He’s not alone in the shelter, either. Max is splayed out in the hay near the doorway, in his usual spot, and although it looks like someone’s tried to cover him, too, as always, the sheet has wound up in a messy pile off to his one side. It’s quite a testament to just how accustomed Jake has become to sleeping amongst these people that it took him so long to register Max’s presence at all, given how loud he is when he’s asleep. Now that Jake is getting to be more awake and alert, he’s finally starting to hear Max’s snoring properly.

That Philip and Evan aren’t here is reason enough for Jake to want to look for them, though, and Max doesn’t stir at all as Jake crawls over him to take a look outside.

He spots them soon enough, but immediately ducks back inside when he sees that they’re stealing some rare time to themselves. It would hardly be the first time he’s unwittingly spotted them like this, standing together in the moonlight, holding each other, heads touching, saying nothing but swaying just a little, like they might be slow dancing if either of them knew what it was, but it doesn’t feel fair to encroach on their hard won privacy. They’ve probably been waiting for a chance to comfort each other after spending who knows how long worrying and waiting for Max and Jake to come home.

… Still, Philip must be really very fond of Evan if he’s willing to brave the teeth of his mask to kiss him like that.

_No. Stop that. You’re supposed to be asleep._

Going back to bed is hardly a struggle, though, not when it’s all made up so nicely, and Jake can’t pretend to be at all unhappy about it as he clambers over Max a second time, to precisely no consequence whatsoever, and tucks himself back in with a yawn.

There’s something to be said, Jake idly thinks, as he makes himself comfortable and gives the kind of deep, contented sigh that tends to come when one is ready to stay exactly where he is for a good, long while, about getting lost in the woods and actually having people waiting for him to come back, people who want him to come home. He’s too drowsy to put it into actual words, mind you, but there’s definitely something to be said about it, somewhere, somehow.

Is Max still snoring? He can’t tell.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which stories are a vital cornerstone of human existence, and storytelling is an important and valuable skill.

The excuse that Jake would give if anyone asked would be that he’s sticking by Evan until someone else comes home, that he doesn’t want to be out in the open by himself while Evan is asleep and everyone else is away attending to trials, but truthfully, he would have found an excuse to stay huddled in the shelter with him even if Philip and Max were here.

He’s waiting for Evan to wake up.

Philip let him in on a little secret recently, namely that there is, when he has nothing to get up for, no trial to hurry away to, a brief window after Evan wakes, while he’s still coming around, wherein he can actually be _quite affectionate,_ cuddly, even, and Jake intends to be there for it, now that he knows about it. Evan’s old-fashioned sense of respectable, mannerly civility very much prevents such behaviour when he’s awake and alert enough to know how he’s supposed to behave in front of other people, but he can be convinced to let his guard down, every now and then.

That, and watching Evan wake up is _fascinating._ As accustomed as Jake has become to Evan’s size and heft, it’s really something else to watch him stretch, every muscle tensing and shifting under his skin as he tries - and he really does have to try; it usually takes several attempts - to rouse himself. He’s still tired, despite the sleep, and he’s probably going to remain tired for quite a while, as he goes through a few rounds of waking, stirring and trying to get himself moving before quietly sinking back into the hay and dozing off again. It’s not hard to imagine how he probably feels; Jake remembers having to do much the same back when he was trying (and failing) to get through college, but Evan, unfortunately, doesn’t have the same luxury of being able to drop out and flee into the woods.

Still, Jake knows that he can make it at least a little better for him. Not much, but a little, more than not at all, and, after watching Evan slump back down for the third or fourth time, he shuffles to his side, climbs over him, and shoves himself pointedly under his arm. It’s disturbance enough to get Evan semi-awake and moving again - and grumbling, as ever, although Jake knows by now that he needn’t pay it any mind - and as Evan sluggishly shifts to prop himself up on his elbows, Jake puts his arms around his neck, all but hanging off him. He grins.

“Hi, Evan.”

“... What’re you doin’?”

In his voice, subdued, gravelly and hung with fatigue, Jake can almost hear Evan squinting blearily at him.

“Evan, I love you.”

He never has an answer for that. It stumps him every time, and Jake can’t help but amused and endeared, as he is now, at the low, resigned groan that he always gives at it. Not that Jake means it any less when he says it, of course. It’s just that it’s so _rewarding_ to see Evan’s reaction that it’s worth saying often, especially when Evan, giving in, once more lets himself down, although this time, wordlessly closing his arms around Jake as he does so. Evan is very heavy, Jake immediately notices, now that he is on top of him, but he only has to squirm a little before he’s able to breathe again, and then he’s content to stay where he is for a while, or at least until Evan finally manages to pull himself together enough to wake up for real.

The other thing, though, is that even as comical as it is to watch Evan grapple awkwardly with the affection he’s given, it _is_ something that he needs to hear. Evan is lonely, and has been for a long time. That’s what Philip said, that he’s often very much in need of that affection, but that he isn’t very good at asking for it, no doubt out of some well-meaning but misguided sense of propriety, and so it’s up to them to help him get to where he needs to be until he can learn to get there for himself.

People didn’t just come out and _say_ things like “I love you,” back in Evan’s day, but times have changed, haven’t they. It’s high time Evan was brought up to date.

It’s not a trial, thank goodness, that finally urges Evan awake in the end. Rather, it’s the sound of Max calling his name, having returned home from a trial of his own and found the clearing quiet and seemingly empty. Still, even as Evan lifts his head and once again heaves himself up, it’s with a weary sigh that suggests he would very much prefer to carry on sleeping, and Jake knows that the time has come for him to offer Evan some more practical assistance than merely curling up under his arm.

Hoping to buy Evan a little more time to come around, Jake hauls himself out from underneath his bulk and heads outside, barely managing not to fall over as he sets foot outside the shelter for finding that his legs are asleep. It’s a fortunate thing that he did hurry out, however, as it seems that Max is sorely in need of some company; he looks just about the sorriest Jake’s ever seen him coming back from a trial, his head low, his footsteps reluctant and sullen and not even the barest hint of a smile on his face. He’s not had a good time of it, it would appear, but that’s alright. This, too, is a problem that Jake well knows how to solve.

Deftly pulling the back of his shirt up over his head, Jake runs out into the clearing to meet him, raises his hands and announces, very loudly:

“I AM CORNHOLIO!”

At that, Max’s face lights up, and a heartbeat later he’s pulling up his own tattered shirt over his head and raising his own hands to mirror him.

“ARE YOU THREATENING ME!?”

The great thing about Max is that he doesn’t have to “get” something to find it funny. One really can just pull his shirt over his head, throw up his hands and start shouting in a stupid voice and he’ll be amused by it. The old Cornholio bit, then, is a convenient shortcut to perking him up, just as it was for Jake’s older brother back when they were kids, and now Jake is beyond delighted to trot it out whenever Max has had a hard time doing the work. There’s nothing _to_ get, it’s just nonsense; shit, Jake never even saw the show he knew his brother picked it up from - it had long finished airing by then - but that doesn’t matter. It’s _funny._ There doesn’t have to be a joke for something to be funny.

By the time Evan finally makes his way outside as well, the two of them are marching around the couch, yelling and chattering about teepee and bungholes and Nicaragua, and all he can do is shake his head at them and keep trying to stretch and flex himself awake. Evan, unfortunately, hasn’t the energy for nonsense, even at the best of times, and although he tolerates the noise for a while, it shortly becomes more than he’s willing to put up with.

“Alright, pack it in, you pair. That’s enough.”

The command is issued loudly and irritably enough that Jake and Max go quiet immediately, but it’s not for long, and as Evan drops himself heavily onto the couch, Max eagerly joins him.

“Hi, Evan.”

“Hello, Max.” God, he still sounds exhausted. “You beat Philip gettin’ home, then, I see.”

“Mhm!”

“Well.” There’s a long pause, then, as Evan’s pitifully small pool of worn out smalltalk dries up. “That’s… hm. Oi. _Oi._ What’re you- Stop that.”

With Evan and Max both sitting on the couch, there’s no room left for Jake. That’s not to say that there’s nowhere for Jake to sit, however.

“For fuck’s sake. Now look, I know Philip lets you climb all over him - now _look here,_ boy - _stop,_ I said.”

Evan absolutely _could_ pry Jake off himself with absolutely no trouble at all, but any attempt he makes to dissuade him from clambering onto his lap and making himself comfortable there is plainly just for show, and Jake is soon enough resting there, his head against Evan’s shoulder.

“Evan?”

He barely looks up to address him, and Evan, now wholly resigned to his fate, doesn’t trouble himself to look down, leaning back into the couch.

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

“Yes. Yes, I know. Thank you.”

Max, meanwhile, has been watching all of this with great amusement, having also been let in on the new game of foisting gratuitous affection on Evan when he’s tired.

“But you love the Man-Cub too,” he says, grinning, “Don’t’cha, Evan?”

Another lengthy pause ensues, until Evan gives a heavy, long-suffering sigh, and finally turns his head enough to meet eyes with Jake.

“Of course.” He says it with sincere warmth, despite his weariness. “Of course I do.”

The next thing Jake knows is that he’s being gathered up, that Evan is touching their heads together, and he can only think to put his arms around Evan’s neck - because goodness knows he can’t reach all the way around Evan if he tries to hug him - and return the gesture as enthusiastically as he can. Then Evan’s putting his arm around Max as well, and he’s drawing them both in so that he can touch all three of their heads together.

“You two mean worlds to me,” he tells them, with that same warmth. “You do know that, don’t you, both of you.”

Max nods.

“Mhm.”

“I mean it. I wouldn’t be without either of you for anything.”

“And Philip too, right, Evan?”

“That’s right, Max. Philip too.”

Well. Maybe they needn’t worry about Evan after all.

“... Anyway.” Not that he doesn’t straighten up just as quickly, mind you; he still has his manners. “Speaking of Philip, what shall we do until he comes home?”

“I wanna hear a story!” Max is as quick as ever to make suggestions. “C’mon Evan, please?”

“Max.” He sighs. “I told you -”

“- You still don’t remember any?” asks Max, frowning. “Not even one?”

“Not even one,” Evan replies, sounding almost as disappointed about it as Max. “I’m sorry, Maxie. But here, listen,” he adds, his tone lifting, “Why don’t we have another one of the Man-Cub’s stories instead? Another one about Captain Picard and his starship, eh? How about that?”

“Yeah! Yeah! C’mon, Man-Cub! Tell us another story about Captain Picard!”

“Haha, okay! Okay!” Jake can only grin at Max’s excitement. “Lemme think of one, okay?”

“You’re not forgettin’ ‘em, are you?” Once again, Evan’s concern is couched in a joke as he gives Jake a nudge. “Surely not.”

“No, man, no, I just, there’s _lots._ I gotta pick one is all.”

Although Evan is a little too proud to appear interested in such fanciful things as stories and make-believe, Jake knows, as he thinks of a story he remembers clearly enough to tell, that he’s going to be listening just as closely as Max is. Max, however, is openly rapt from the start, and sits, already leaning in before Jake has even said anything, as ready as he’s ever been for anything in his life.

“Okay, so.” Jake rubs his hands together. “You ready?”

“Yeah!”

“Hee, okay, good! So.” Sitting up as best he can while he’s still using Evan as an armchair and leaning in too, he begins with his usual introduction to one of these stories. “Somewhere way, way up in the sky, somewhere far, far away from here, out among the stars, Captain Picard is up there, flying the Starship Enterprise, with all of his friends, and all of their friends, and their friends’ friends. And everybody aboard the Starship Enterprise can do whatever they want, and anytime they like, they can look outta the big, big windows and see all the stars going by.”

“An’ nobody has to worry about nothin’!” Max goes on, with enthusiasm enough to elicit a low chuckle from Evan. “‘Cuz they all know that Captain Picard is smart ‘n’ good, ‘n’ he always does what’s best for everybody!”

“That’s right!” Jake nods. “Now, on this particular day, things are going a little slow, there’s not a whole lot going on, and Captain Picard decides that, since they’re nearby, they’ll go and take a look at the Neutral Zone and make sure nobody’s hanging around in there who shouldn’t be. And it’s a good thing he did decide that, because as soon as they get there, a tiny little Romulan starship comes flying over, only big enough for one person, and they’re getting chased by a whole bunch of big Romulan ships!”

“Oh no!”

“And as soon as he’s near enough, the guy in the little Romulan ship calls Picard and says, ‘Help me! Help me! I’m in so much trouble! Please help me!’”

“But those Romulans are so sneaky!” Max’s brow furrows deeply with suspicion. “It must be a trick!”

“Well,” says Jake, “That’s what Riker thought, too. He said, ‘Don’t you dare help that Romulan guy, Captain Picard! It’s gotta be a trick or a trap or something!’ But Captain Picard told him off and said, ‘We’re going to help him, because what if it’s _not_ a trick or a trap? What if he gets hurt because we didn’t believe him?’ And because Captain Picard is in charge, and everybody knows he’s smart and good, they all agreed that that’s what they’d do.”

“They’d better keep an eye on that guy, though!”

“Oh, they did. They let him on board, and because the Enterprise is a great big starship, they could chase the other Romulans away!”

“Yeah! What was his name?”

“Uh.”

While Jake certainly remembers the _story,_ he can’t honestly say that he remembers _quite_ every detail of it, and he has to rack his brain as quickly as he can to come up with a suitably Romulan-sounding name.

“... Turok.”

Well. Max won’t know any better, will he.

“Now,” Jake goes on, lowering his voice and leaning in a little closer, “Turok told Captain Picard that he was in trouble with the other Romulans because he knew a big, important secret, and they didn’t want him telling anybody.”

Max, drawing in close as well, gasps as quietly as he can.

“Oh! But he told Captain Picard, right?”

“He did! He said that the other Romulans were gathering in big, big numbers in a secret place in the Neutral Zone, because they were getting ready to start a big fight!”

“They can’t do that!” Max sits up, appalled. “That’s against the rules! They ain’t s’posed to be in the Neutral Zone, nobody is!”

“That’s right! It _is_ against the rules! That’s why Turok came to tell Captain Picard, so he could do something about it before these guys could hurt anybody.”

“Man. It’s gotta be a trick. Romulans don’t care about anybody gettin’ hurt.”

“Well, that’s what Riker thought too, and he told Captain Picard that some of his friends had been to the ‘secret place’ that Turok was talking about and that they hadn’t seen anything there.”

“So he _is_ lying!”

“It seemed like it, but then Captain Picard had to ask, ‘What’s the _real_ trick? Why’d he come here? What are they trying to do?’ Because the Romulans never just do things for fun, do they?”

“Nope!”

Throughout all of this, Evan looks like he might be dozing; the mask makes it hard to tell, but Jake keeps hearing - or, more often, feeling - him laugh under his breath at Max’s excitement. He’s listening too, and, every now and then, he’ll turn his head a little and cast a glance towards the woods, no doubt looking for the campfire just as much as he’s looking for Philip.

It’s a marvel that they’ve been allowed to keep Evan for this long, coming to that. Jake would have expected him to have been called back by now, especially considering how often him upstairs seems to lose patience with Philip’s underperformance lately and send him home early. That said, Philip’s been gone a long time. Maybe he’s having a good run, if one could ever call it that.

Jake tries not to think about it, and focuses instead on his storytelling. Max has fucking _loved_ hearing these regurgitated tales of Captain Picard and his Starship Enterprise since the first time Jake thought to tell him one, and Jake is thankful that he managed to see enough of those stories himself, back in the day, to be able to recycle them like this. They were a source of much-needed respite for him when he was younger, and now they’re becoming a similar window into a wondrous world outside for Max, too.

So, the story of “Turok” the Romulan Defector rolls on, and Jake pretends not to notice that Evan is watching the treeline more than he’s watching him or Max. He’s worried, although the precise cause for his worry could be one of any number of things. It might be that he’s worried about Philip, considering how long he’s been away, or he might be worried that he hasn’t been called back yet; that he hasn’t been sent for in all this time can only mean that _something is happening,_ or is going to happen, although what, exactly, that something could be is anybody’s guess. It might have to do with Philip, for all any of them know. That really _would_ be worrisome.

“... But when Captain Picard and his friends arrived at the place Turok had told them about, a bunch of Romulan fighting ships appeared out of nowhere! They were nearly surrounded!”

“Oh no! ‘Cuz they can go i’visible! Just like Philip!”

“That’s right!” Jake endeavours to keep his concerns from affecting his storytelling, however. “They can! And they called Captain Picard and said, ‘So! Turok brought you here after all! None of what he’s told you is true - we told him a bunch of lies just to see if he’d rat us out to you, and since you’re here, he must have snitched on us! Give him back to us so we can punish him for telling!’”

Max gasps.

“So… even though the stuff he told Captain Picard wasn’t true, he wasn’t lying, either!”

“Exactly! He told Captain Picard what he _thought_ was the truth, because he wanted to stop the fighting from happening! But the other Romulans didn’t like that, so they cooked up a way to test him and find out if they could trust him to keep their real secrets.”

“That’s so sneaky! Shit, those Romulans are even dirty to each other!” He huddles in even closer, quite literally on the edge of his seat. “What did Captain Picard do!?”

“Well,” replies Jake, the smile already appearing on his face, “We all know that Captain Picard is smart and good, and because he was _so_ smart and _so_ good, he thought to call some of his far away friends to help him before they got there! At Captain Picard’s call, a whole heap of Klingon fighting ships appeared! Because they can be invisible, too!”

“An’ Klingons are much bigger ‘n’ scarier ‘n’ better at fightin’ than Romulans!”

“I bet you know what those Romulans did, right?”

“They ran away!”

“They ran away as fast as they could! And Captain Picard shouted after them, ‘That’s right! Get outta here! And don’t let me catch you in the Neutral Zone again!’”

“Haha! Yeah! Get outta here, Romulans!”

Despite his lingering worry, Evan can’t help but laugh at that, and Jake gets his hair briefly ruffled for his efforts. Still grinning, Max eventually manages to settle down enough to ask a question.

“So what happened to Turok, huh? I guess he couldn’t go home after that.”

“No, he couldn’t,” replies Jake. “It wouldn’t be safe to go back when all of the other Romulans were so mad at him for snitching.”

“That ain’t fair,” says Max, indignantly. “He was only tryin’a do a good turn.”

“Yeah, well, the Romulans don’t like it when someone does a good turn for anybody who isn’t a Romulan, do they.”

“They sure don’t.”

“Well,” Jake tells him, “Captain Picard told Turok that he could stay aboard the Enterprise if he wanted, since he didn’t have a home to go back to anymore.”

“And did he?”

“Of course he did! And Turok went on lots of cool adventures with the rest of Captain Picard’s friends and had a really good time!”

“Yeah!” Max cheers. “Your stories are the best, Man-Cub!”

“Haha, thanks, Maxie. I’m glad you like ‘em.”

He doesn’t have the heart to tell Max how that particular story really ended.

Before Max can demand another story, however, Evan’s quiet sigh of relief catches Jake’s attention, and, following his gaze to the treeline, he sees that Philip has finally come home, and no worse for wear, thankfully, aside from how relieved he looks to be back.

“Right, go on then, get off.” No sooner has Philip appeared in the clearing, Evan is gently but firmly shooing Jake out of his lap. “Go on, go and see Philip. We all know it’s him you really want.”

The statement is, as ever, spoken with humour, but Jake knows Evan better than that, and he takes a moment to sit up and hug him as tightly as he can before he hops out of his seat to run to Philip, with Max not far behind. Philip, by comparison, is all too happy to be hugged and made a fuss of, accepting wholeheartedly the enthusiastic and affectionate welcome he receives from them, and, sure enough, it’s not too long until Evan is there to greet him, too.

And, sure enough, even without the kind of open, physical expression of affection that he and Max tend towards, Jake doesn’t fail to notice the fondness in Evan’s voice as he comes near - “... Hullo, Philip.” - nor the big, slow blink that Philip gives in response, looking back at Evan with soft eyes when he’s finally given room enough to do so.

Their tender reunion is cut somewhat short, however: Philip has barely been there for a few moments when an awful, chilling wind blows through the clearing, and it immediately becomes apparent as to why Evan hasn’t been called back to a trial.

“... Looks like we’re in for some rain, then.” Evan grumbles, glancing up at the dark, rolling clouds gathering overhead. “Let’s get the settee in the shed.”

As he and Max go to pick up the couch and move it inside the shack, Jake, meanwhile, huddles a little closer to Philip, and is greatly relieved for the light, reassuring touch of Philip’s hand at his back. He can already smell the water on the rapidly rising wind, and he knows, straight away, the kind of rain it will be; the kind that comes down hard and raw, so bitterly cold that it stings his face and numbs his limbs, the kind that freezes his hands until his knuckles seize and his fingertips ache. The thought of it fills him with dread, until he remembers.

He’s not running around feral in the woods, lost, alone and unwanted anymore. Not this time.

No, on the contrary - this time, he’s running around feral in the woods _with his friends,_ who love and care for him, who will shelter him and keep him warm. He doesn’t have to be afraid of a storm like this, not now.

By the time the first drops are starting to fall, already cold and heavy from the start, the clouds have come in so densely that they block out what little light the ever-present moon provides, and the clearing is all but pitch black as Evan comes to Philip’s side, already ushering Max towards the shelter as he stands with his back to the wind, shielding them all from the worst of the rain. In the brief time it takes for the four of them to get inside the shelter, it’s thundering down in howling, roaring sheets, and Jake hurries to hunker down in his usual spot near the back wall.

When _him upstairs_ goes to the effort of providing some “enrichment” for his pets, he intends for them to be there to experience it. With the last round of trials wrapped up, he’s sent everyone home and let them stay there, in good time for this show he’s cooked up.

Despite being warm, dry and safe, however, Jake still finds himself trembling, even after the shelter’s hanging lamp is turned on to provide some visibility. Some traumas are just too ingrained to fade away with time alone, it turns out.

“Philip, I’m cold.”

He only has to say it once, and only quietly, for Philip to be there, lavishing comfort upon him in the form of blankets, soft chattering and a warm embrace, and Jake hastily accepts it all, desperate to be as far away as possible from the jarring memory of the last time he had to make it through a downpour like this. So desperate is he, in fact, that it takes him a while to notice that Max is having a shit time of it as well.

Max, too, is huddled up in his regular spot, but he’s clearly terrified, his knees tucked right up to his chest and his arms around his ears, and although Evan is trying to help him, it’s proving to be more of a challenge than he’s got the patience for.

“It’s too loud!” cries Max, wincing at the noise of the rain hammering down on the shelter’s roof.

Evan, for the third time, suggests a solution, but the by-now familiar sound of his jaw clenching is starting to come through as he speaks.

“It would be quieter,” he says, again, “If you’d just let me close the _fucking_ door, Max.”

“I don’t wanna close the door!”

The “door” is little more than a sheet of corrugated steel, just a little taller and wider than the shelter entrance, that they can barricade in place from inside the shelter to close it up. After the incident with Myers a while back, it was decided that the door was a necessary addition, but Max is not a fan of it.

“I _know,_ Max,” Evan tells him, fighting not to raise his voice, “But it will be _quieter_ in here if we close the door and shut the rain out.”

“Don’t close the door! I don’t wanna close the door!” Max hugs himself tighter still. “I don’t wanna close the door!”

It’s understandable. They all know why Max doesn’t want the door closed. He likes to know that he can get out, and if the door is closed, he can’t see outside. Between the noise and the threat of being shut in, he’s starting to panic.

“You can’t have it both ways, Max!” Evan’s temper is beginning to fray. “Either the door stays open and it’s loud, or the door closes and it’s quiet! What do you want!?”

Philip has seen enough. Before Evan can get wound up any further, he quietly moves in to place his hand softly on his shoulder, and, just like that, Evan is quiet, too, albeit very grudgingly. That just leaves Max, then, and there, at least, Jake can be a little helpful.

“Max, come and sit over here with me, it’s quiet over here.”

It’s true; the back wall of the shelter is where most of the earth from the hole it’s set into is piled up, and it muffles the worst of the noise of the rain. But even so, Max doesn’t take him up on his offer straight away.

“... But that’s _your_ spot,” he eventually murmurs, hugging himself a little tighter.

“I know,” says Jake, offering a reassuring smile, “But it’s an emergency, so I don’t mind sharing with you this one time. C’mon, come sit with me.”

It’s all the reassurance Max needs, and he rushes to join Jake at the back of the shelter. Soon enough, Evan and Philip are there too, as ever, on either side of them both, and it isn’t too long until Max is starting to settle. However, now that he’s no longer frightened out of his wits by the noise, another, underlying reason for his lingering anxiety can surface.

“... Is he mad at me?” he asks Evan, after a while. “Is that why he’s throwin’ it down so hard?”

“Who, him upstairs?” Thankfully, Evan is sounding less stressed, too. “I doubt it,” he chuckles. “We’d all know about it soon enough if he were angry about somethin’.”

“M’kay.”

“Oi, come on, now.” When Max fails to seem convinced, Evan puts an arm around him and hugs him, just briefly. “This is just what rain is like sometimes, Maxie. That’s all. Don’t fret about it.”

“Mm.” Still, it’s not enough for Max to smile or raise his head. “... I guess I’m dumb for bein’ scared, huh.”

“It’s okay,” says Jake, looking up at him. “I’m scared, too.”

“Really?” asks Max, with some considerable surprise. “How come?”

“Well…” Jake shifts where he’s sat, prompting Philip to squeeze him just a little tighter with the arm he’s got around him. “... Back before I got here, I had to live out in the woods - the _real_ woods - by myself, and I didn’t have anywhere to stay dry or hide away; I tried to make some shelter for myself but the storm was so bad, the roof fell in. I got so cold that I couldn’t move; I thought I was gonna die.”

“But you ain’t there no more, Man-Cub! You don’t gotta be scared of it now.”

“I know, but… it’s like how you don’t like the door being closed, Max. It’s… it’s too much like it was back there, you know?”

“... Was it that scary?”

Jake nods, and Max pauses, frowning with concern.

“... Did… _did_ you die, Man-Cub?”

He’s about to answer that no, of course he didn’t - dying in the real world doesn’t work the same way as it does here, but Max wouldn’t know that, would he? - but when he thinks about it, really tries to remember, he’s suddenly not so sure. What happened after the storm was over? He can’t recall. Surely he’d have been happy to see the weather clearing, would have felt the warmth of the rising sun; it’s the sort of thing Jake feels like he ought to be able to remember, but, as hard as he racks his brain for the memory of it, he can’t.

Maybe he’s just been here too long. Maybe he’s forgotten, or maybe it’s the trauma. That must be it. Maybe it’s both. It must be.

“... Man-Cub?”

“Don’t pry, Maxie.” The low, grave tone of Evan’s voice betrays more than a little concern of his own. “People don’t like talkin’ about things like that.”

“Oh.” Again, Max’s head dips. “Sorry, Man-Cub.”

Jake does his best to force the smile back onto his face.

“It’s okay.”

It’s not okay. It’s not even slightly okay. He’s thinking about it now, and he can’t stop.

_You fucking died out there. You died. Cold, alone and unwanted. He took you because nobody else wanted you. He knew nobody would care if you disappeared. You were so unwanted and unloved that you fucking died. How does that feel, asshole?_

He’d had no idea, and despite his repeated attempts to remind himself that it might not have happened like that at all, that he might simply have forgotten it all, through time or through trauma, or both, the fact that it _could_ have happened still hurts, and terribly so.

But he’s not there anymore. Evan, Philip and Max, they want him. It’s never going to happen again.

Only, telling himself that isn’t enough to chase the doubt - the fear - from his mind, and Jake, hoping to silence that vindictive little voice in his head, wordlessly turns and buries his face in Philip’s cloak, holding onto him with all his might. That there’s no hesitation at all from Philip in turning to him and holding him just as snugly is an enormous relief, everything that Jake could have wanted of him, and, bit by bit, that wretched fear begins to ebb away.

“Aw gee.” Jake hears Max’s regret somewhere behind him. “I must’ve upset him bad, huh. I’m sorry, Man-Cub. I didn’t mean to.”

“You see why you shouldn’t poke your nose into other people’s business now, don’t you.” Well, it’s a lighter scolding than Evan usually gives. “Here, move. Move, I said.”

Evan hefts himself around Max just enough that he can reach over and give a gentle tousle of Jake’s hair.

“Come on, Man-Cub. You’re alright. You’re wanted here.”

Of course, Evan knows. Jake told him. He told Evan what happened, and why, and although he never mentioned exactly where he went afterwards, it’s hardly difficult to connect the dots. Evan knows.

“... Did somebody not want him!?” asks Max, with horrified shock in his voice. “What the fuck!”

“Mind your fucking business, I said!” This time, Evan comes down on him quite a bit harder. “What did I just tell you!?”

“Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s… it’s okay.” Jake, swallowing and resisting the urge to sniffle, finally leans just far enough away from Philip that he can look around at Max and Evan. “It’s okay, I’ll… I’ll tell him.”

“You don’t have to, Man-Cub.” Evan, however, is quick to come to his defense. “It’s nobody’s business but yours, boy. You don’t have to explain it to anybody.”

“I know that,” Jake tells him, kindly, “And I appreciate it, Evan, I do, but… it’s okay. I don’t mind. See, Maxie,” he says, turning to Max, “I, uh. My parents, the people who were supposed to take care of me, see, they…” He gestures with uneasy, uncertain hands. “... They had some big ideas about who they wanted me to be - before they even had me, I think - and when I got older and they saw that I didn’t measure up to what they’d had in mind, they…”

He gives a dejected shrug.

“... They didn’t want me anymore. They didn’t want me if I wasn’t gonna be what they’d decided I should be, so they, y’know. They threw me away.”

_Nobody threw you away. You didn’t have to leave. Stop lying._

They _did_ throw him away, though. Even if they didn’t physically throw him out of the house themselves, they made it clear that he wasn’t welcome there, that there wasn’t room in their hearts for him if he wasn’t going to match up neatly with the image of the ideal son that they’d dreamed up and put on a pedestal. His father would have turned him out into the streets if he’d stayed much longer, Jake has always sensed; he just beat them to the punch is all.

“Is that why you had to go ‘n’ live in the woods?” asks Max, with a cock of his head.

“Yeah, that’s, that’s why I had to go and live in the woods, Maxie.”

“So…” Max’s mouth twists a few times as the gears turn. “... You’re like me?”

Jake hesitates. He’s always been deeply reluctant to compare his situation to Max’s in any way, always been adamant that Max had had it so much worse that he couldn’t possibly draw any kind of similarity between the two of them, wouldn’t _dare_ suggest such a thing.

But if _Max_ is the one suggesting it, well. He can’t really argue with that.

“... Yeah. Yeah, I’m like you, Max.”

“But that ain’t fair!” cries Max, greatly distressed. “You ain’t ugly or stupid or nothin’!”

“It wouldn’t be fair even if I was,” Jake sighs. “You can’t just… throw people away, not when you’re supposed to be taking care of them. Not when they’re _yours,_ you know?”

“Yeah, well.” As Philip once more pulls Jake into a hug - a very, very tight hug - Evan shifts just a little nearer, and gives him another hearty ruffling. “You’re ours now, aren’t you.”

Max might have said something after that, but Jake doesn’t quite manage to hear him clearly for being squeezed and nuzzled and kissed and sung to. He never told Philip, he realises. He never told him where he came from or how he got to be here, and this is the first he’s hearing of it.

_Ou-wh. Ou-wh. Ou-wh._

God, he sounds distraught, and it occurs to Jake, as he’s being aggressively cuddled and told, in no uncertain terms, that he is _very_ much beloved and unwanted no longer, that Philip’s _“ou-wh”_ is not merely a simple pet name. More than that, more than being a direct, one-to-one translation of Evan and Max’s “Man-Cub”, that little _“ou-wh”_ that Philip is now so _insistently_ repeating against Jake’s ear or into his hair is something far, far more precious.

_My_ Man-Cub. That’s what it is; Jake can hear it plainly now. _My_ Man-Cub. _My_ Man-Cub. _My_ Man-Cub.

There is nothing, in this world or any other, that he would rather be. He returns Philip’s affections with gusto, and just barely hears Evan remark to Max with humour that he doesn’t think there’s anything to worry about.

And with that, the drama passes. It’s quiet after that, except for the rain and the thunder overhead, but even as loud as it is, it’s considerably softened for the four of them being huddled together in a heap at the back of the shelter. Jake even manages to doze, although that’s not a terribly challenging thing to do while he’s bundled up in blankets and still being gently hugged, and perhaps it’s because he’s dozing that he doesn’t react to hearing the distant but still distinctive screech of Sally’s blink somewhere outside, not until Max does first.

“Sally’s out in that shitty rain, too? Ain’t she got nowhere to go?”

“I’m sure she can look after herself,” Evan tells him, already irritable for what he knows Max is about to suggest but doing his best to be patient. “We needn’t worry for her, I can assure you.”

“But it’s so bad out there!” protests Max, fretfully. “We should ask her if she wants to come in!”

“She won’t, Max.”

“But we should ask! We owe her a good turn, Evan! You said!”

“Max -”

“- You _said,_ Evan!”

With a lot of grumbling and growling - and yet more when he notices Philip looking expectantly at him as well - Evan eventually concedes that yes, he did say that, and yes, they do owe Sally a good turn. They might not have their Man-Cub with them at all by now if it weren’t for Sally giving Evan the tip-off that Myers was on his way to the clearing while they were all busy not so long ago, and, as much as he dislikes her, still, Evan can’t really argue the point. Grudgingly, he caves to Max’s persistent begging.

“Alright, alright, fine. I’ll go outside, and I’ll ask her if she wants to come in. That’s not to say that she will, I ought to mention,” he adds, sternly, “But I will ask her. Alright?”

“Yeah!” Max is happy with that. “Be nice to her, okay?”

“Yes, yes, I will, I will. Christ.”

As Evan heaves himself up and makes his way towards the door, Jake has to admit that, whilst there are a great many things one could say about Evan, he’s nothing if not a man of his word. One seldom has to do much more than point out a promise or an agreement he’s made and he’ll stick to it, even if he doesn’t like it much. Indeed, he sounds about as pleased as one would expect as he leans outside and starts calling.

“Sally! _Sally!_ Come in here!” Evan bellows over the noise of the weather. “Get out the rain!”

That’s about as close as he comes to “asking” anyone to do anything, really.

“... Don’t fuckin’ look at me like that! I’m tryin’ to be decent, for christ’s sake!”

She’s reacting about as well as could be expected, apparently. Jake’s not sure what to hope for; he doesn’t trust Sally one bit, and he’d be quite content for her to stay well away, but at the same time, he _is_ very curious to find out what, exactly, the motivation might have been behind that one good turn she managed to do. Is there something she wants? Something she’s planning? It’s curiosity that Jake knows he can afford to have, in any case. She’s not stupid enough to push her luck with Evan, Max _and_ Philip here.

“Don’t be a fool, woman! You’re gettin’ drenched!”

Speaking of Evan, he’s getting impatient, and after yelling into the storm for a little longer, he draws back inside the shelter with a huff. Max peers at him.

“... Is she comin’?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Evan grumbles, wiping the rainwater roughly off his mask and bald head. “Couldn’t hear her. Probably for the best, to be honest.”

“Aw.”

“Well,” he says, moving to rejoin Max, Philip and Jake at the back of the shelter, “We asked. Can’t do any more than that, can we.”

“I guess not.”

Before Evan can sit down, though, a voice from the doorway catches them all off guard.

“Hello?”

“Sally!” Max’s face lights up as Evan turns around to look at her, too. “You came!”

“Nice of you to join us,” remarks Evan, his pleasantries sounding more than a little insincere. “Do come in.”

“Yes, well.” Sally speaks and moves, as she drifts lightly through the shelter doorway, with the manner of someone making an effort to seem dissatisfied from the start. “I suppose it would be impolite to refuse such a _graciously extended_ invitation.”

“You’ve got Max to thank for that,” Evan tells her, watching her cast a theatrically disinterested glance around the shelter. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, but he insisted.”

Max waves at her, grinning, and it seems like a blessing that Sally’s face is so completely obscured, given how wholly unimpressed by Max she usually is. She doesn’t address Max at all, predictably, and instead remains focused on Evan. Although, in a way, Jake can’t blame her for keeping both eyes on him - he’s still standing.

Despite not being able to fully straighten up under the shelter’s low roof, Evan is still standing, once more putting himself steadfastly between Sally and Max, Philip and Jake, shoulders squared, head lowered.

“Please,” he says, his voice edged, ever so slightly, with a growl. “Do take a seat.”

He’s making it abundantly clear that Sally is only here because _Max_ wants her to be, and that he’s not going to sit down until she does, that she’s not going to be allowed to come within arm’s reach of anybody. If she doesn’t like it, the door is right there behind her.

Indeed, she does linger for a few moments, no doubt considering her options, but eventually decides to take up Evan’s “offer” of a seat - “Thank you,” she says, with similarly shallow courtesy - neatly setting herself down a short way from the door, across from Max’s usual spot. It’s only then, once she’s started wringing the water out of the edge of her dress, that Evan sees fit to sit down as well, although when he does, it’s firmly in between Max and Philip, where he can easily reach them both if need be. Jake, meanwhile, finds himself sandwiched into what little space is left between Evan and Philip, not for the first or last time, at least until Philip shuffles aside just enough to afford him some room to breathe.

It’s only because Philip shifts like that, in fact, that Evan realises what he’s done, and he looks away from Sally for just long enough to touch Jake’s shoulder in wordless apology for nearly crushing him. He’s keeping a _very_ close eye on her.

The silence that follows after that is long and uncomfortable. Nobody in the shelter has ever had a conversation with Sally - at least, a conversation that wasn’t an argument - in all the time they’ve been here, and they aren’t in a hurry to start. Sally, too, is unwilling to change her position on the matter, and pours a great deal of purpose into making sure Evan can see that she isn’t paying attention to him.

In the end, though, it’s Max who extends the first tentative olive branch.

“... Um.” He’s understandably nervous, and doesn’t quite manage to look at her as he sits there fidgeting with his hands, but he’s doing his best. “... ‘M glad you came in, Sally.”

“Yes, well.” She doesn’t look at him, either. “Evan asked so _nicely,_ didn’t he.”

“I told him he’s gotta be nice to you.”

“Did you, now.”

“Mhm.”

“I see.”

She’s making every effort to sound inattentive, but of course it’s lost on Max, isn’t it, which Jake supposes is a mercy. It seems she’s wiser than to be so obviously rude that Max might be hurt by it, at least while Evan is sitting right there, watching her like a particularly big, bad tempered hawk, but she’s far too proud to be pleasant to anybody. This is the best she can do, the most she can get away with.

However, Max’s anxiety soon gets the better of him, and the shelter falls quiet once more. Until Sally’s boredom gets the better of _her,_ at least.

“... So this is all you have in here, is it?”

“That’s right.” Evan only sounds marginally more engaged than she does, mind you. “This is it.”

“We sleep in here,” Max helpfully supplies. “‘S good.”

“I see.” Finally, she does sit up and take the shelter in somewhat. “I must admit that I’ve been curious as to what this place of yours was.”

“Yeah,” grumbles Evan, “You’re not the only one. Coming to that,” he goes on, “I expect I should be thanking you for tellin’ me about Myers comin’ down here that time. I appreciate it. We all appreciate it.”

“So that’s what this little act of hospitality is about, is it?”

“Well, _yes,_ obviously. But don’t assume that it’s any less honest for it. You do me a good turn, I’ll do one for you.”

“Your ‘Man-Cub’ means that much to you, does he?”

She says it rather incredulously, something to which Evan takes some considerable exception.

“Don’t talk about him like he’s not in the fuckin’ room,” he snaps, leaning forward where he sits. “He’s right here, and yes,” he adds, harshly, “He does.”

Philip, too, is quietly bristling. Jake can feel him tensing up next to him, and, on Evan’s other side, Max is watching on owlishly, no doubt worrying that a screaming row is going to kick off at any moment.

“You know he does,” Evan continues. “You must be a fool if you think I’ve not seen you hangin’ about. _Watching._ You know what goes on here, I know you do.”

“... Very well,” Sally replies, after a moment’s consideration. “Man-Cub.” She turns, and Jake can only assume that she’s meeting eyes with him. “I’m surprised you haven’t been sent home yet.”

“He _is_ home.”

The aggressive interjection is equal parts correction and warning, and Evan glowers at Sally as he makes it, daring her to try to argue with him. Again, Sally pauses briefly to weigh up the wisdom of disputing Evan’s statement, while she’s sitting squarely in the middle of his turf, in front of not only Evan himself but Evan’s posse as well, and shortly decides to keep any challenges she might have in mind to herself. Evidently, Sally is well able to pick her battles when she wants to, and she’s quickly learning what will be considered an overstep.

Sure enough, the next time she speaks up, it’s with the slightest touch more respect.

“... Of course he is. How silly of me.” Albeit, only the very slightest. “Anyway. Isn’t it _charming_ that the Master has seen to bless us with this _wonderful_ spot of entertainment.”

Ah, him upstairs. It figures she’d have her own name for him. Now _there’s_ something they all have in common; nothing facilitates bonding quite like having a good bitch and a gripe about someone you all hate, and a good portion of the tension between them evaporates in an instant.

“Indeed,” says Evan, mirroring Sally’s sarcastic tone. “I can’t _possibly_ imagine what we’d do to occupy ourselves were it not for these thoughtful little things he does for us.”

“The Man-Cub says they ain’t get no rain over in the other place.” Max, too, is much more eager to talk now that everyone is getting along. “Right, Man-Cub?”

“Really?” And, for the first time, there appears to be genuine interest in Sally’s voice. “Is that so?”

Jake nods, admittedly only feeling as confident as he does for having Philip’s arm around him.

“Yeah. He doesn’t do anything like this -” He hesitates, caught between wanting to say ‘for them’ or ‘for us’. “- Over there. There was snow one time, but I mean, it, it wasn’t _good_ snow. It would’ve been less disappointing if he hadn’t bothered.”

“Sounds about right,” Evan disdainfully remarks. “Could say that about a lot of what he does.”

“Why do you suppose that is, then?” asks Sally. “I would have assumed that he would treat you and yours the same as he treats us.”

“Yeah, you’d think that.” Jake shrugs. “But I mean, then you’d have to assume that he knows what he’s doing, wouldn’t you.”

“He raises a fair point,” says Evan. “You have to admit.”

“He does,” Sally concedes, with a nod. “You’d think that our _gracious benefactor_ would be more competent, wouldn’t you.”

“Evan, what’s a… a bene- benefactor?”

“It’s someone who does nice things for you and gives you the stuff you need to get on with business, Max.”

“Oh.”

Suddenly, having Sally there with them doesn’t seem so bad. Now that she’s not actively trying to be abrasive, the atmosphere in the shelter has become far more comfortable and relaxed. Much talk is being had over the shared injustice of having to come up with their own amusement all night long and spending all of their time being either bored to tears or rushed off their feet, and it’s refreshing, really, genuinely refreshing, to see that they _can_ all get along, if they make some little effort towards doing it. Nobody’s interested in sharing too much about themselves, of course, and Jake can certainly understand why, but the fact that amicable conversations are happening is nothing short of marvellous.

After all, they _are_ all in the same boat. It’s stupid that they’d be bickering amongst themselves when there’s a common enemy who continues to abuse all of them, regardless of how hard they work for him.

Or for _it,_ rather. The Entity is a bastard.

Still, all this talk about amusing themselves has reminded Jake of a question he’s had for a long time, and, when there’s a lull in the conversation, he gives Evan a nudge.

“Hey, Evan?”

“Hm?” He actually takes his eyes off Sally completely to turn to Jake, which speaks volumes on its own. “What is it?”

“What did you used to do for fun? When you were, y’know, back home?”

“What, you mean before I ended up here?”

“Yeah.”

“... Why’re you so interested all of a sudden?”

“Well, I was just thinking,” says Jake, “You guys didn’t have, like, a whole lot of technology or anything, so I figured -”

“- Now wait just a fucking moment, boy.” Jake is accustomed enough by now to Evan fingerwagging at him that he’s wholly unfazed by it. “If you were about to suggest that I ought to have some ideas about what we could be doing to entertain ourselves because we ‘didn’t have a whole lot of technology’, you can shut your fucking mouth.”

Likewise, Evan is accustomed enough to Jake just sitting there and innocently smiling up at him throughout his attempt to tell him off and not being at all worried by any of it that he doesn’t trouble himself to do much more than glare irritably down at him. Jake doesn’t have to be scared of him - especially given that Philip is struggling not to laugh at his side - and that insufferably innocent smile only grows wider as he tilts his head, just a little.

“Am I wrong?”

“Listen, you cheeky little shit -” The fingerwagging resumes, and Jake doesn’t flinch in the slightest. “- I might’ve been here a long time, but I’m not from the fucking stone age!”

“How long _have_ you been here, MacMillan?” Sally’s nonchalant inquiry interrupts the would-be scolding, however. “I’ve always wondered.”

For a brief while, Evan doesn’t answer, turning that glare on her instead. Until now, the conversation has been distinctly impersonal, but this is pushing the line. Sally is ready to test her luck again, it would appear, and Evan is less than pleased about it.

“... Are you sure that’s a question you wanna be askin’?” he growls, eventually.

Surprisingly, his response does actually give Sally some pause, and she, too, takes her time in replying to him, deciding whether it’s really worth pressing the issue.

“... It seems I’ve struck a nerve,” she finally remarks, calmly lacing her fingers. “Has it really been that long?”

Evan grumbles and seethes at her brazen cheek for a few moments more, until Philip’s hand settles once more on his shoulder. It can’t hurt to tell her, surely. They’re all in this together, aren’t they? What harm could it do?

Max, too, is leaning in. He’s never heard how long Evan’s been here either; to Max, Evan and Philip have always been here, permanent fixtures in his life ever since he arrived himself.

“... I’m not sure.” Evan grudgingly replies. “I couldn’t tell you. It’s hazy.”

“Well.” Sally, meanwhile, continues with her even, somewhat obnoxious demeanor. “What date do you last remember it being? What date do you last remember seeing on the newspaper?”

The tension is plainly visible in Evan’s shoulders. Jake can see his jaw clenching, in spite of Philip’s attempt to soothe him, but he knows it’s not because Sally’s questions are overly intrusive or prying.

He can’t remember. That’s what it is, he can’t remember. He can’t remember seeing the date on a newspaper, can’t remember it being _a date_ at all. He can’t remember any stories when Max asks for them, and can barely remember the words to one or two songs, when pressed. It’s been so long since Evan was a person that he’s forgotten nearly everything about being one, and now that Sally’s asking him to look back on it, to recall something specific, he’s having to face up to it.

He’s not happy about it.

But they _do_ know how long it’s been, roughly.

“Evan.” Jake gently reaches for him, and touches his arm. “We worked out how long it’s been, remember? You asked me what the world was like before I got here, and we worked it out.”

And at that, thank goodness, Evan stops fuming, and peers down at him.

“... We did?”

“Yeah, we did. You were pretty drunk, though. It figures that you wouldn’t remember.”

“What? Drunk?” Sally is immediately intensely curious, and Jake can guess why she’d be interested. This place is enough to drive anyone to drink. “How did you -”

“Never you fucking mind,” snaps Evan, before quickly turning his attention back to Jake. “And what did we deduce, Man-Cub? Tell me.”

“Well…” Jake’s own memory of the conversation is unclear, but the main points are still there. “.. It seemed to me that it’d been about a hundred years,” he explains. “I mean, probably more than that, really.”

“Ohh.” Rocking back where he’s sitting and slipping his hands under his mask to rub his face, Evan groans. “Fuck me, you’re right, I remember now. Christ. Bloody hell. I shouldn’t’ve asked.”

“How much is a hunner’d years?” Max asks, with concern. “Is it a lot?”

“Yes, Max.” Evan is still staring at the shelter ceiling. “It is a lot.”

“And I suppose you were able to fathom that, ‘Man-Cub’, because you _do_ remember where or when you came from.”

“Well, I mean.” Even though he can’t see her face, Jake can feel Sally’s eyes on him. “Maybe?”

“What was the date?” she hisses. “I want to know how long _I’ve_ been here. Tell me the date.”

God, they’re _all_ staring at him now. It’s making it difficult to think clearly, especially knowing that anything he tells Sally is going to be bad news. Her dress looks horrendously old fashioned, like something Jake has only ever seen in history books, and she, like Evan, has almost certainly been here for longer than she lived as a human person.

“I, I’m not sure,” Jake nervously admits. “It was… Jesus... “ He tries to recall the last date he wrote on a paper in college, but he can’t see it in his mind’s eye as clearly as he’d hoped. “... Twenty… twenty something-teen, I don’t know exactly.”

“... _What._ ”

Her smug, conversational tone is gone in an instant, but it doesn’t feel good to have shut her up. Indeed, Evan, Philip and Max are looking at each other, too. Philip gives the softest, most resigned sigh and shakes his head, and then there’s no sound in the shelter at all but the relentless drumming of the rain on the roof.

“... Seems it’s been a long time for all of us,” Evan says, quietly.

“Yes.” Sally’s curt, forced tone is that of someone fighting to maintain their composure as she sits there staring at her hands, her fingers still laced, in her lap. “Yes, it would seem that way, wouldn’t it.”

Max, meanwhile, is sitting there with that slightly wide eyed look of distress on his face that he tends to get when he can see that his friends are upset but doesn’t understand why. They’ll have to explain it to him properly at some point, but for the time being, they’re struggling enough with the revelation themselves.

Jake doesn’t have the heart to mention that he doesn’t know how long _he’s_ been here.

He ought to do something to lift the mood in here, though, and to that end, he shuffles around to put himself in Philip’s arms and give him a much needed hug. He’s received very gratefully, and soon Philip is reaching for Evan, too, and then Max. All huddled together at the back of the shelter like that, they can forget about Sally, and the rain, and the uniquely miserable nature of their predicament, if only briefly. They’re together, still. It’s not so bad.

But of course, Sally can’t stay forgotten about for long.

“So.” The self-assured attitude she came indoors with has well and truly left her, so much so that she can barely look at anyone directly. “That’s all it takes to make it better between you, is it? Playing at being a happy little family?”

She’s bitter, as much as she ever has been, but her words lack the vicious, biting sting that they usually carry, coming out tired and defeated for realising how much time she’s unwittingly lost in this hellhole, and Jake senses that this bitterness is borne out of a different reason than it usually has been. He doesn’t want to be presumptuous by assuming that Sally’s new, dispirited malignity is arisen out of envy, but she has no friends in this place. Sally is alone, and as much by own her making as it may be, it must be tough to see that Evan, Max and Philip - and now Jake, too - can lean on each other through rough patches like this.

That, and she does sound more than a touch envious.

Evan is about to grumble at her for her comment when Max taps him on the shoulder.

“Evan, what’s a family?”

“Oh, it’s, uh.” The question disarms him, and sufficiently so that he’s distracted altogether from his chagrin. “A family’s when you all stick together and look after each other, Max.”

“Oh.” Max pouts, considering this. “... Y’mean like us?”

“Yes, Max,” replies Evan, as Philip chuckles on his other side. “Like us.”

“Huh.” More pouting ensues. “... An’ the Man-Cub’s in the family too, right?”

“Yes, Max.” He hesitates. “... If he wants to be,” he adds, turning to Jake.

Jake stares at him. He’s been aware for a good, long while now that he’s been well and truly adopted into this fold, but this is the first time anyone’s come straight out and _said_ it, much less asked him about it and expected an answer.

He doesn’t know what to say, but it doesn’t matter. They want him, they do, and it’s all Jake can do to grin and nod just about as vigorously as he can. It earns him an equally vigorous ruffle of his hair, just before Max can barge in front of Evan and throw his arms around their ‘Man-Cub’ with glee.

“Oi! Gently with him, for fucks sake!” Thankfully, Jake doesn’t have to struggle for breath for long. “He’s not as sturdy as the rest of us, you know that!”

“Sorry.” Dipping his head, Max sheepishly lets him go. “Sorry, Man-Cub.”

“It’s okay.” Jake is quick reassure him, though. “You didn’t hurt me, it’s okay.”

“Good.” Evan gives them each a ruffle in turn before ushering Jake back towards his other side. “Move along, now. Philip wants you back.”

Well, of course Philip wants him back. Philip always wants him back, and Jake is happy to oblige him. However, Sally can’t be content to just sit and watch as Jake settles himself back into his spot between Evan and Philip and lets himself be hugged.

“Lambs shouldn’t lie down with lions, you know.”

“Man, say whatever the fuck you want.” Jake frowns at her, losing patience. “Do I look like a fucking lamb?”

He hears Evan’s low, warning huff behind him, feels Philip hold him a little tighter, and knows that he can say whatever the fuck he likes.

“And who the fuck in here is a lion? _You?_ You’re not a lion. You’re an asshole.” He scowls. “I get it!” he says. “I get that it sucks being out here on your own! I know what that’s like, I do! You’d have to be some kind of… of… inhuman fucking machine to not feel shitty about it! But you don’t get to take that shittiness out on other people!”

“And we were havin’ such a nice talk earlier, weren’t we,” remarks Evan, with that characteristic low, almost-growl. “You can be decent if you bother to try.”

“Can we go back to havin’ a nice talk?” Max nervously asks. “Please? That was good, I liked that.”

“Yes.” Evan concurs. “I agree. I liked it as well. We really should get back to that,” he says, not having stopped glaring at Sally since Jake started speaking. “Shouldn’t we, Sally.”

“Oh, please.” She’s losing her patience, too. “Do you honestly think that this is the proper order of things, you being here like this? And all of you _keeping_ him? Are you all mad?”

“Sally, _none_ of this is the ‘proper order of things’!” Evan’s starting to sound like he might be getting to the end of his tether as well, though, which is a far more dangerous thing. “All of us bein’ here for hundreds of fuckin’ years, playin’ at these stupid fucking games for him upstairs, there’s no ‘proper order’ to speak of! None of us should be here! We _will_ keep the boy, thank you,” he tells Sally, harshly, “And _we’ll_ decide what the proper order of things is to be around here.”

Perhaps it’s that rising edge in Evan’s voice that persuades her not to argue the point any further. It seems more likely to Jake that that would be the case than that she might actually be swayed at all by anything anyone has said, but whatever Sally’s underlying motivations might be, she bites her tongue, and, after a tense few moments of quiet, concedes.

“... Very well, then. Have it your way. I suppose you’ll take what you can get.”

“That I will,” Evan tells her, stubbornly. “And you ought to do the same, if you want to keep your wits about you. You know that this is hardly an easy place to be,” he says, his tone mercifully softening somewhat, “And you _must_ know that it makes no sense for us to be at each other’s throats or tearin’ each other down all the time!”

“And where has this sudden desire for unity come from, exactly?”

“From seein’ that you can be decent if you just fucking _try!_ For god’s sake, woman! We _talked!_ We’ve never done that! Please!” Evan implores, gesturing rigidly at her, “Just get down off of your fucking high horse for, for a fucking _moment_ and _think_ about it!”

She doesn’t immediately snap back to that, and Evan takes the opportunity to take a big, slow breath in an attempt to soothe himself.

“... Look,” he sighs, “I’m _tired,_ Sally. Aren’t you?”

Again, Sally seems to have nothing to say, no snide, acerbic comeback to make, and Jake just barely makes out the similarly weary sigh that she gives as she mulls it all over. The rain continues to beat down over their heads, and Evan shares a few wordless glances with his companions. Jake offers him a consolatory smile and a pat on the back.

_You tried, man._

“... So.” They all look up as Sally breaks the silence. “What _did_ you used to do for fun a hundred years ago, MacMillan?”

An audible collective sigh of relief ripples gently through the shelter. Max openly laughs, but although he tries (and fails) to stifle himself when he realises that everyone else is still being politely quiet, he can’t keep the grin from his face, and turns excitedly to Evan, practically bouncing where he sits.

“Well, I, uh.” Evan laughs too, now that everyone’s eyes are on him, having been somewhat blindsided by Sally’s question. “Christ, you’ve put me on the spot now.”

“You remember,” says Max, nudging him, “Right, Evan?”

“Of course I do, of course, of course.” And yet, still, he hesitates. “I mean, we, I used to read a lot. Not much of that to be done around here, unfortunately.”

“Did you have any favourite books?” Jake asks, looking up at him.

“What’s a book?” Max, too, is peering at Evan. “Ain’t we got no books here?”

“It’s like your magazines that you write in,” Evan tells him. “Only they’ve already got writing in ‘em, haven’t they, so you can read ‘em for fun.”

“Oh. What’s written in books, then?”

“Oh, all kinds of things, like… like things you wanna learn about, or stories -”

“- Stories? Did you read any stories, Evan?”

“Of course I did.”

“Can… can you remember any of them?”

“Bits and pieces of one or two,” he regretfully admits, “But not enough to tell any of ‘em. I know you’d hate me if I told you a story that didn’t have an ending, Max.”

“Aw, man.”

“I’m sure somethin’ll come back to me if I keep thinkin’ about it, Maxie.” Evan gives him a hefty pat on the back. “Give it time.”

“Okay.”

Max wants to believe him, and Jake, too, hopes that it’s not just a lie of convenience. It’s thoroughly shit that Evan has lost so much of himself in this place.

“So, hey.” Jake presses him further. “What else did you used to do? Did you ever sing or play anything? C’mon, I know you used to sing.”

“I did, I did. When I was a youngster, at least. Not so much when got old enough to be helpin’ my dad run things.”

“Oh?” That’s piqued Sally’s interest. “What things?”

“The mine,” Evan replies. “The ironworks, all that business. We did very well off the back of it, but it took up a lot of our time.”

“So the ironworks and what have you, that’s all yours, is it? That’s where the Master’s got it all from?”

“Yes.”

“I see. That’s very interesting. Do go on; what _did_ you manage to find the time for?”

“Well, uh.” Ah, we’re getting into murky territory now. “Hm.” Evan rubs his chin. “There… there was somewhere we used to go, I remember that much, something we’d look forward to a lot, me and Dad.”

“Was it music?” asks Jake. “Did you go to concerts?”

“Well sometimes, but - _THE OPERA!”_ Evan pounds his fist into his other palm at the sudden recollection. “It was the opera!” he exclaims. “We used to go to the opera, it was Dad’s favourite thing in the whole world, ‘cause we could afford it then, couldn’t we.”

“Really?” Sally almost laughs for the incredulity of it. “The opera? _You?_ You must be joking.”

“We were high society, I’ll have you know!” Evan retorts, thumbing his own chest. “Just ‘cuz we weren’t born into it doesn’t make it any less so!”

“I can imagine some people would argue with you on that matter,” she remarks, “But I digress, regardless. Tell me, what did you see at the opera, then?”

“Oh, all sorts.” He’s started talking with his hands, now. “You could expect there to be at least a couple of big new shows to see every year, and plenty in between if you were willing to travel for ‘em.”

Once again, Evan has proven himself to be utterly fascinating, although now for whole new reasons. Jake’s never seen him so animated; apparently the key to reviving his old memories lay in getting him talking about them, and it gives Jake some hope that maybe he, too, can manage to hold onto his personhood, even if he’s still trapped here in another hundred years.

“Evan, what’s the opera?”

“Oh, it’s brilliant, Max. There’s a big, big stage - you’d love it - and people get dressed up and go up there and act out stories, only they sing ‘em, and a different language.”

“Ohh!” Sure enough, Max is captivated, and Jake is sure he can see stars in his eyes. “I wanna go to the opera! But, um.” He comes down, just a little, as he reaches a stumbling block. “What’s a different la- language mean?”

“Well, that’s, uh. Hm.”

“It’s when people who live far away from each other wind up talking differently,” Jake jumps in to explain. “Sometimes, when people don’t get to talk to each other at all, they don’t get to, like, compare notes on the words they’re making up for things, so those people will have all different words for everything, and usually they can’t even understand each other unless they make an effort to learn the other person’s way of talking. That’s how different it is.”

“Oh! Y’mean like how you call it a couch, but Evan says it’s a settee!”

“Yeah! That’s right! Only it’s with, like, _every_ word.”

“Oh. Ohh. How d’you know what’s happenin’ in the story, then, if it’s all in different words?”

“Well, that’s why there’s people on the stage actin’ it out, isn’t it,” says Evan. “It’s easier than it sounds, I promise you. It makes sense when you’re there.”

“Okay.”

And Jake isn’t the only one who’s enjoying Evan’s newfound energy: Philip, too, is watching him with affection, with those same soft eyes, and every now and then, Jake will feel himself being squeezed, ever so slightly, by the arm Philip still has around him. He pretends not to notice.

“Did you have a favourite opera?” he asks Evan. “I mean, were there any really popular ones?”

“You know,” says Evan, “There was one, I remember, the last one we got to see before Dad got too sick to travel, it was all the rage. Everyone was talking about it.”

“And which one was that?” Sally’s lacing her fingers again, but she’s no longer speaking in that quite intentionally annoying mock-conversational tone, thank goodness. “Do tell, MacMillan.”

It’s interesting, Jake inwardly reflects, that she keeps egging Evan on like that, encouraging him to talk more, and he supposes that as long as Evan is talking about himself, Sally doesn’t have to share anything personal of her own or make much of an effort to contribute to the conversation. It’s a genius move, really, on Sally’s part, and Jake recalls making use of a very similar tactic back when he was in college and had to talk to strangers at house parties. It worked well enough for him, and it’s working marvellously for Sally.

The concern, however, is that she might be mining for ammo, or blackmail material, but Jake does his best to chase the worry from his mind. It’s understandable, after spending so long being at loggerheads with Evan and his bunch, that she’d be leery of oversharing. Jake can’t really blame her for keeping her business to herself when it’s so _easy_ to keep Evan talking instead.

“God, I can’t remember the title of it, but…” Evan folds his arms as he tries to recall the details. “... It was about… Now look,” he says, raising his hands, as it comes back to him, “This is gonna sound ridiculous, now that I think about it, _but,_ bear with me. It was about clowns.”

“Clowns.” Sally skeptically repeats after him. “Really. _Clowns._ And this is what everyone was raving about, is it?”

“Look, I know, I know.” His hands raise further. “But hear me out, alright?”

“Evan, what’s clowns?”

“Hm? Oh. A clown,” he patiently explains to Max, “Is someone whose job it is to entertain other people and make ‘em laugh. They do it by doin’ japes and makin’ ‘emselves look stupid.”

“Oh.”

This time, when Max stops to consider what he’s just been told, it’s for quite a bit longer than usual, but the others know well enough that there’s going to be another question coming soon enough, and wait for him.

“... Evan,” he says, with the barest hint of worry, when he finally looks up again, “Are _we_ clowns?”

“Uh. Hm.” Cocking his head, Evan almost nods. “Do you know,” he wearily replies, “Sometimes I think maybe we might be, but no, Maxie, we are not clowns.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You simply _must_ divulge how this… this _clown opera_ could ever possibly manage to be so popular, MacMillan.” Sally, meanwhile, might actually be legitimately intrigued now. “Was this some kind of mass hysteria, or was there actually something to it?”

“Well, the story, as I recall, was about this one clown in a little travelling group of clowns,” Evan explains. “And he was properly miserable because his wife - she was one of the other clowns in this travelling group - didn’t love him anymore, and she was fuckin’ about with this other bloke in their troupe, and the whole point of this opera, this story, was that he was havin’ to put on his makeup and costume and go out on stage with a big fuckin’ smile on his face even though he’s dyin’ inside on account of his broken heart, because it’s his job to make the audience laugh, isn’t it. It was actually very moving,” he remarks. “We saw about four or five different productions of it, until Dad couldn’t go out anymore.”

“... You know,” Sally says, nodding, “I can imagine why people would be interested in it, when you put it like that. It’s… rather relatable, isn’t it.”

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

“... Are you _sure_ we’re not clowns?”

“Yes, Max, I am _very_ sure.”

… Hold on a minute. Hold on just a _fucking_ minute. A sad clown opera? _The_ sad clown opera? Jake’s eyes widen as his own recollection strikes him. Surely he doesn’t mean… There’s no _way_ that fucking tune is that old, is there?

“... Evan.” He taps Evan on the arm, the profundity of his concentration written all over his face. “Do you remember how any of the songs from that opera went? I think I know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re joking.” He stares. “You are fucking joking, boy. Explain yourself.”

“There’s this one tune that’s _everywhere,_ it’s all over,” Jake tells him. “Everybody’s heard it, even if they don’t know where it came from; it’s just, you said it was the sad clown opera, and _that’s what it is,_ that’s the tune that everyone knows, because it shows up in everything all the time.”

“And how does this tune go, boy? Tell me, I want to hear it.”

“I don’t know the words, though.”

“I don’t care. Sing it. With whatever words you _do_ know. I want to hear it.”

He’s starting to get that warning tone about him that Jake knows better than to argue with, but the thing that makes Jake infinitely more nervous is the fact that the only words he remembers that go with the Sad Clown Song are gut-wrenchingly stupid, and now he’s going to have to cough them up in front of everybody in the shelter. In front of _Sally,_ who already thinks he’s an idiot.

“Uh.”

Shit, he can already feel his face getting hot. Better to just get it over with; Evan’s going to be upset if he chickens out, and he doesn’t want to disappoint him when this is so obviously important to him.

“I… I’m a…”

He takes a deep breath.

_“BIG UGLY CLOWN-OH!_ _  
_ _JUST A FAT UGLY FLOWN-OH!”_

_“RIDI DEL DUOL!_ _  
_ _CHE T’AVVELENA IL COR!”_  

Evan’s voice is made all the bigger and louder than it normally is for being inside the shelter, not only when he sings to finish the tune that Jake started but when he laughs out loud afterwards, too.

“I don’t believe it!” he breathes, still laughing. “People still remember it! They’re still raggin’ on it a hundred years down the fuckin’ line! That’s… that’s…”

Remembering that there are other people in the shelter besides himself and Jake, though, he hastily settles himself back down, clearing his throat.

“That… that is a comfort to me, Man-Cub. Thank you.”

“Maybe the world hasn’t totally moved on without you after all, huh?” Jake isn’t nearly so good at forcing the grin from his face. “Some things just stay the same forever, I guess.”

“What different words was that, Evan!?” And Max, bless his heart, is captivated all over again. “I didn’t unnerstand _none_ of ‘em!”

“That’s Italian!” Evan is all too happy to explain it to him. “I don’t speak any Italian, though. I just know the words to that bit because I heard it so often.”

“That’s so cool! Is there any different words you _do_ know?”

“Well, I used to speak a bit of French.”

“Oh, did you?” asks Sally, leaning in. “C’est quoi ton nom, Monsieur?”

Evan responds to her in kind without missing a beat.

“Je m’appelle Evan MacMillan. Et vous, Madame?”

“Je suis Sally Smithson, et c’est un plaisir de vous recontre. Et puis, Evan MacMillan, que fait-tu comme travail?”

“Je suis un clown, madame.”

Although most of the conversation is lost on him, Jake thinks he gets the gist of it from the parts he did understand. That, and he most definitely heard the word “clown”, which is enough for him to guess at the joke Evan made: a joke that was, it seems, funny enough to actually get a laugh - or rather, a stifled snort - out of Sally, which is nothing short of a colossal achievement.

Max is still beaming.

“I didn’t get _none’a_ that.” This isn’t a negative to him, apparently. “Oh! But! But! What about you, Man-Cub? Do you talk any different?”

“Oh! I, uh.” Jake gives a timid chuckle. “I, uh, I learned some Spanish in school, but, uh…”

“But you forgot all of it the moment you stopped having to go to school,” Evan observes, with amusement. “Am I right?”

“Well gee,” Jake sarcastically replies, “How did you know?”

For once, the toothy grin of Evan’s mask seems completely appropriate.

“I used to speak Latin, too.”

It’s enough to get Sally to conspicuously turn her head. She’s trying _very hard_ not to laugh.

“Do you speak any other languages, Philip?” asks Jake, turning around to smile at him.

Philip nods eagerly, and holds up six fingers.

“You speak _six_ languages?” Sally peers at him. “I’ve never heard you speak at all, and you’re telling me that you speak _six_ languages?”

Again, Philip nods, and points upwards, then at his mouth.

“... The Master took your voice away.”

_Yes._

“Why?”

He shrugs, theatrically throwing up his hands as he does so, suggesting more than a little resentment towards their mutual overseer for it.

“That’s very interesting,” Sally remarks. “Well, I’ve certainly underestimated _you,_ Mr Ojomo.”

At that, Philip gives a comically limp-wristed _‘Oh, go on’_ gesture, much to Evan, Max and Jake’s amusement.

“So how come you had to learn to talk in all different ways, Evan?” Max prods him again. “Did’ja have to talk to people from far away?”

“Well, my Dad hoped I would,” Evan tells him. “The Latin was just somethin’ you did in school back in those days, but the French, Dad said it’d make it easier on me if I ever wanted to travel.”

“Forgive me for mentioning, MacMillan,” says Sally, quizzically, “But I can’t help but notice - you’ve talked an awful lot about your father, but I’ve yet to hear you mention your mother.”

Immediately, Evan is stumped, and his enthusiasm vanishes in an instant.

“... My mother?”

“Yes, MacMillan, your mother. Where was she while all of this was going on?”

“I…” His gaze drifts uneasily around the shelter. “... I don’t remember my mother.”

“Was she not there?" asks Jake, concerned. "Did she leave or die when you were young, or…?”

“... She must’ve done,” Evan replies, eventually. “She must’ve done.”

“You don’t actually know, do you.” Sally tilts her head as she says it. “You’ve forgotten your own mother.”

“And do you remember yours?” he asks her, that challenging growl starting to find its way back into his voice.

“Of course I do.”

“Good.” He huffs. “Take care that you keep it that way.”

Once more, silence descends upon the shelter, and they’re all left to listen to the rain again.

At least, until Sally appears to reconsider her attitude.

“... Yes. Yes, I will certainly keep that in mind.”

“Well,” says Evan, quietly, “We’ve all gotta look out for each other, haven’t we. Perhaps things can be a little more civil between us all now, eh?”

“I’d like that,” says Max, hopefully. “An’ it’s like the Man-Cub said that time, it’d be easier if we were all nice to each other.”

“‘S true,” agrees Evan, folding his arms. “It takes effort to be shit to each other, and I’d say we’ve all got _quite enough_ on our plates without having to be battlin’ between ourselves, besides. Wouldn't you say, Sally?”

“... Well, would you look at that. The rain has stopped.”

Sally is already picking herself up - not getting to her feet, exactly, given her usual mode of travel, but something like it - and brushing the hay off her dress as she says it.

“Hm.” Evan huffs, less than impressed by her blatant dodging of his question. “So it has. I expect you’ll be on your way now, will you?”

“I believe I’ve taken my fair share of your hospitality, yes.”

Sure enough, the roof is no longer being bombarded by an unyielding downpour, and although it’s still dark outside, because of course it’s still dark outside, the sky has cleared enough that the moonlight is blessedly once again illuminating the ground in front of the shelter’s exit. Sally effortlessly drifts out of the door, but it is rather telling that she’s still in the clearing when Jake, Evan, Max and Philip also make their way outside, and even moreso that she has nothing to say about it when Max, overjoyed to be outside again, blows off some of his pent-up energy with a run around the treeline.

“Max!” Evan calls after him. “Don’t you wander off! Stay where I can see you!”

With Max reluctantly but obediently coming back to Evan’s side, Philip, meanwhile, takes a moment to kneel down next to Jake, and, putting an arm around him, takes a very pointed look up at the sky, where the stars are, thank goodness, visible once more, and then smiles at him.

_See? The storm is over, and you’re still here._

It’s true, he _is_ still here. Still here, still warm and dry, still safe. It takes a few heartbeats for it to really sink in, but it does, soon enough, and Jake enthusiastically drops to his knees too, throwing his arms around Philip to hug him for all he’s worth. For his efforts, he’s hugged and kissed and nuzzled in return, so heartily so that he doesn’t even realise Evan is there too until his massive hand is on his head and giving him an affectionate pat.

But, as ever, Sally can’t just see something like that happening without mentioning something about it.

“You’d best be careful, Ojomo,” she says, “Or you’ll love that ‘Man-Cub’ of yours to death.”

“... Huh?” Max whimpers, staring at her. “What? Is that… can that happen!?”

“No, Max. No. Ignore her.” Evan is quick to allay his fears, patting him on the back before gently sinking to one knee to hug both Philip and Jake. “Don’t you mind her, Philip. You keep on lovin’ him, that’s it. I think you’d better move along,” he tells Sally, loudly, as he straightens up, turning to face her once he’s standing again. “Wouldn’t want to overstay your welcome, would you.”

“Oh, come on, MacMillan.” She is, predictably, immediately on the defensive when she sees that Evan isn’t willing to let it slide. “It was a joke, it’s not my fault if you can’t -”

“We don’t make jokes like that here.” He interrupts her bluntly. “Move along.”

“Really?” Sally bristles at him, all but hissing. “You’re going to make such a fuss over -”

“I said we don’t do that here!” he barks, quickly losing patience. “Move along!”

“Hmph.”

Still bristling, Sally takes one last moment to look at them all as they look back at her with varying degrees of anger or distress, and then, in a blink, she’s gone.

“What the fuck kinda joke is that!?” cries Max, as Evan gathers him, Philip and Jake all together for another hug. “That ain’t funny!”

“It wasn’t a joke,” rumbles Evan, doing his best to offer them all some comfort. “Some people just _say things_ that they know will probably upset you and then tell you it was a joke after the fact when you don’t let them get away with it.”

“... That… that can’t actually happen, though, can it?”

“No, Max, it can’t. Don’t fret about it.”

“Why’d she say it, then?”

“‘Cause she’s jealous,” Jake says, still holding onto Philip. “If she can’t be happy, she’s gotta spoil it for everyone else, too.”

“Man.” Frowning, Max leans against Evan. “Why’s she gotta ruin it like that? We were havin’ a good time until she said that.”

Sighing, Evan holds them all a bit tighter.

“Some habits are hard to break, Maxie. She’s used to bein’ a bitter, nasty old cow, isn’t she. It’s gonna take more than one try for her to learn to stop. But she can,” he adds. “If she tries. We know that now. Maybe it won’t be like this forever.”

“I hope not.”

“It won’t, Max. It won’t. You were right, we should be tryin’ harder to be friends with her, shouldn’t we. If she’ll try harder for us, too.”

“Yeah.”

“But hey.” Jake grins. “We’re gonna have a hell of a story for Lisa the next time we see her, right?”

“Too right,” chuckles Evan. “Too bloody right. Christ.”

Shit, it’s so good to feel wanted.

Jake wouldn’t trade it for anything.


	13. Chapter 13: Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remarkable how much things can change in the blink of an eye, isn't it? In an instant, your whole life can fall apart, just like that.

Max’s laughter has always been infectious. No matter how many times he hears it, Jake just can’t keep himself from smiling, and now, as Max grins and hiccups at the tickling of the cloth pad Philip has made to paint his right hand with brushing over his palm, he’s just as helpless as ever against the urge to laugh right along with him.

The four of them, he, Max, Philip and Evan, have managed to catch a rare moment together, and Philip has decided that they’re going to make the most of it. He’s dug out all of his paints, along with a wooden plank and a few other bits and pieces, and told them all, in his way, that they’re going to make some art. Evan was somewhat skeptical about it to begin with, but Philip, as ever, didn’t have to work very hard to convince him, and now they’re all sitting in the grass while Philip holds Max’s palm upturned in his hand and deftly applies a generous coating of white paint.

It’s very true, what Jake said to Max while they were lost in the woods together a while back: Philip very much _is_ the one in charge around here. If Philip decides that they’re going to do something, by and by, they’ll end up doing it, and even if one might not understand exactly what it is that Philip has decided they’re going to do to begin with, it’s best just to go along with it and trust that it’ll all become clear soon enough. It’s a good policy. They’ve yet to go wrong by it.

Indeed, Max is just over the moon with the tidy handprint that’s left behind after Philip gently but firmly presses his painted palm against the wood. He’s seldom ever made anything even slightly tidy in his life, but with a little help and guidance, he’s done it here. It’s Evan’s turn after that, as indicated by Philip reaching for his hand and looking at him expectantly, and, after a moment’s hesitation, he grudgingly relents, giving Philip his hand to paint.

As ever, it’s all for show - goodness knows it would be terribly unbecoming for a fellow of Evan’s stature to be excited about _fingerpainting,_ of all things - but Evan sits there, quite placidly, and lets himself be painted once Philip gets started, and takes a tellingly great deal of care in making a nice, neat handprint, right next to Max’s.

After that, Philip wants Jake’s hand, and once Jake has left a mark as well, Philip goes ahead and makes his own, and their little work of “art” is finished. Four white handprints, side by side: Max, Evan, Jake, and Philip, all together. Philip is pleased; all he wants to do, at least once the paint is scrubbed off their hands, is smile and hug everyone. It would appear that this little ritual is more than meets the eye, and although Jake doubts that he’s ever going to find out exactly what its real significance is, the fact that it clearly means so much to Philip is more than enough to satisfy him.

Philip’s paints dry very quickly, most likely because they’re intended for skin and faces more than anything else, and before too long, their new piece is hung up at the back of the shelter, where they can admire it whenever they like.

It’s an eye-opening thing, to see all of their hands all together like that, from Max’s big palm with its lanky, somewhat crooked fingers, to Evan’s massive, spade-like paw, to Philip’s long digits, with wide gaps in between - and then, amongst them, Jake’s own hand, so thoroughly average and wholly dwarfed by them, and yet…

… It belongs there. It does. It looks _right_ there, and, looking around at the others as they all take some time to study this curious piece they’ve made, too, it seems he’s not the only one who thinks so. There’s a lot of smiling and nodding going on, a lot of satisfied noises being made; why, they could sit there and take it in all night. Which they do, and happily so, until the inevitable call of the campfire interrupts them.

“God damnit.” Max scowls through the shelter doorway at the little light flickering in the woods, and slouches. “I don’t wanna go.”

“It’s gotta be done, Max.” Evan tells him, patting him on the shoulder as he gets to his feet. “Come on, we’ll go together.”

“Naw,” sighs Max, thoroughly dispirited. “You stay. You already did a bunch last time.”

“Alright, Maxie. I’ll catch up with you in a bit then, shall I?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, Maxie. Thank you.”

“‘S okay.”

As they all go outside to see Max off, though, he doesn’t look or sound particularly “okay” about any of it, and even as Evan gives him an encouraging pat on the back and tells him that he’ll be home again soon enough, it fails to bring the smile back to his face or put the spring back in his step.

“Do your best, Maxie!” Jake calls after him, as he heads sullenly into the woods. “We’ll be here when you get back!”

Once he’s gone, though, the remaining three share a concerned look amongst themselves. As Philip quietly shakes his head, Evan, folding his arms, gives a heavy sigh, his own gaze drifting towards the ground.

“... I’m sure he’s just tired,” he says, eventually. “He’s been doin’ a lot lately.”

“I guess the work is starting to seem more like _work_ now, huh?” Jake looks up at him. “He used to be excited to get down there and do trials.”

“Yeah.” There’s another big, troubled sigh. “I’m sure that’s all it is. He’s just worn out, that’s all. He’ll get used to it.”

“Man, I hope so. He’s not himself, is he.”

“No, he’s not. I’d best get on ‘n’ make sure I’m ready to go down there and lend him a hand,” Evan says, straightening up. “I’m sure you two have plenty to be gettin’ on with, don’t you.”

Doing his best to smile, Philip nods, and gives Jake a gentle nudge, pointing at his paints, still sitting out in the grass. There’s still art to be made, apparently, but once he and Philip are sat down again, it turns out to be something other than what Jake had been expecting: shifting his weight to kneel in front of him, Philip takes that pad of bundled cloth in one hand, and delicately cups Jake’s face in the other, asking him to raise his chin.

“Oh!” Jake’s eyebrows raise as Philip reaches for some black paint. “We’re, uh, we’re painting _me_ now, huh?”

Again, Philip nods, although he looks much happier about it this time, and Evan, coming to sit with them now that he’s got his tools out of the shack, gives a low but nevertheless immeasurably warm chuckle at the pair before he gets to work fixing traps and sharpening blades. Jake is well used to the sound of whetstones on steel by now, and, with his eyes closed and his head tipped back as Philip begins softly applying that black pigment to his cheek, he barely notices it at all.

Things like this, and like getting his hair combed through and tied up earlier, too, are amongst Jake’s favourite ways to spend his time. Philip is always so gentle; every touch of his hand on Jake’s face when he asks him to turn his head, every brush of that soft cloth pad, is so tender and full of care that there’s nothing else like it in the world, and Jake once more reflects that nothing could convince him to willingly trade all of this away, that nobody could ever possibly offer him anything better. Even as Philip paints his eyelids - because he’s doing this _properly,_ evidently, he’s not going to half-ass any part of it - Jake doesn’t have to worry that it’s going to be the least bit unpleasant.

By the time Philip is done with the black paint, Jake is almost falling asleep sitting there, and he only manages not to because he hears Philip reaching for another colour just before he can doze off. The reason he’s painted Jake’s face solid jet black, it turns out, is because he wants to offset the white that he’s picked up next, and it occurs to Jake that Philip is painting his face just like his own. It was touching to think that Philip would want to paint his face at all, given that Jake knows just how important Philip’s paints and the marks he makes with them are, but the realisation that Philip wants the two of them to _match_ makes it all the moreso.

He can’t really hope to know what most of it means, though, if there’s a real, direct meaning to any of it, and with Philip putting the pad aside in favour of applying the white paint with his fingers, Jake doesn’t suppose it matters. As he feels a row of dots being made under his eye and along his cheekbone, first on one side and then the other, it seems to him that it’s the intention that matters more, and when Philip softly presses a kiss to his forehead before painting another, larger dot there with his thumb, his intentions seem very plain indeed. It’s enough to make Jake’s heart swell, and he’s trying not to laugh, then, while Philip paints a stripe down from that dot and along the bridge of his nose.

Every now and then, Evan pauses in his work to watch them, but he and Philip have lived together for a long time, and he knows better than to interrupt by saying anything while Philip is painting. As such, the three of them are just sitting together, enjoying a contented peace, and it’s nothing short of marvellous.

Another line of little dots over each eyebrow, a pair of stripes on each cheek. A thick line from the middle of his lower lip to the bottom of his chin. These markings aren’t the same as Philip’s, but there’ll be no mistaking them as a matching pair regardless, and Jake couldn’t be happier. A few more little details here and there, and Philip decides that he’s satisfied with his handiwork, letting Jake know that he’s finished with an affectionate stroke of his hair with his clean hand before he gets up to wash the paint off the other.

Evan is looking at Jake when he finally opens his eyes, and Jake, only having the faintest idea of what he must look like, grins at him, earning another hearty chuckle.

“You’re a right pair, aren’t you,” Evan remarks, shaking his head. “What am I to do with the two of you?”

“I look good, right?” Jake’s grin grows ever wider as Philip returns just in time to catch his hand before he can touch his face. “Man, I wish I could see.”

“Well, maybe you can. Let’s see here…”

Leaving his tools and his traps for a few moments, Evan gets to his feet and heads into the shack, returning shortly with that same cracked bowl that they seem to use for everything. Then, after filling it with a little water from one of their big plastic drums, he returns, and carefully sets the bowl down on the ground, where the moonlight can reach it.

“Come on,” he says, beckoning Jake over. “C’mere.”

Sure enough, once the surface settles, Jake can see himself in the water, and Philip, looking over his shoulder, patiently catches his hand for a second time. They _do_ look like a pair, it’s true, and it’s everything he could ever want. Turning to look back at Philip, even as he’s smiling, he can feel a lump forming in his throat, and he swallows as hard as he can, suddenly very aware that his tears will spoil his wonderful paints if he lets them fall.

Christ, and all this time, he’d thought that happy tears were a thing that only really happened in movies, like magic and food fights, and love winning the day over simple, clear-cut evil.

Jake swallows again and sniffles, fighting back the urge to wipe his nose, and although he’s so, so sure that he’s managed to quell the tears in his eyes, something still manages to fall into the water, creating ripples in his reflection. Philip, as always, is quick to put an arm around him and hug him, and Evan is soon reaching for him as well, placing his enormous hand on Jake’s head and brushing him, just a little, with his thumb, in lieu of the messy ruffling he’d no doubt be giving if Jake’s hair weren’t so tidy.

“C’mon, Man-Cub. You’re alright.”

“I know, I know, I’m okay,” Jake says, smiling at him. “I just, I, I don’t know. I’m okay.”

“Alright.” Evan gives him a gentle pat before going back to his work. “Good lad.”

It doesn’t take him terribly long to settle again, and it’s not much longer after that before his paint is dry, as Philip happily demonstrates by cupping Jake’s face and lightly kissing his forehead again.

_Ou-wh. Ou-wh._

“I know, man. I know.” Placing his hands over Philip’s, he leans into his touch. “I love you, too.”

The paint, now that it’s dry, is made to last. It’s going to take some very determined scrubbing to remove it now, and that’s fine by Jake. He hasn’t failed to notice, however, that Evan is still taking little breaks from his tools to glance towards the two of them, although he doesn’t say anything, and Jake shares a knowing look with Philip for a moment before going to sit next to him.

“Hey, Evan?”

“Hm?” Evan’s mask makes it impossible to see his face, but Jake can hear him smiling. “What is it?”

“Can you teach me to sing, Evan?”

“What?” He laughs. “You already know how to sing.”

“No, I know how to _yell._ I wanna sing, like you do. How did you learn?”

“By practicing my scales every day, of course.” Putting down his tools, Evan cocks his head at Jake. “You _do_ know how to practice your scales, don’t you?”

“Uuurrgh!” Jake throws his head back in an entirely too theatrical display of disapproval. “I don’t _wanna_ do any fuckin’ scales!”

“Hah!” Evan gives a harsh cackle. “Yeah, you know, sure enough. Well, I’m sorry, my boy, but it’s the only way.”

Something about the way he says it, mirthfully and almost teasingly, makes Jake wonder if he might be hearing some secondhand echo of the voice of Evan’s father.

“Come on,” Evan tells him, nudging him. “You do a set and so will I.”

“Ugh. Fine, okay.”

Hoping to steel himself somewhat, Jake draws in a deep breath, but winds up blowing it out again in an indignant sigh. It feels frustratingly like being nine years old again, standing in the middle of his parents’ study and being told to _try again,_ for the fourth time, and _this time,_ stand up straight, and he hates it. He hates it _so much._ At least Evan isn’t harassing him about his posture.

“Oi. Come on, sit up straight. You need to be able to breathe.”

Well. It would have been too much to ask, wouldn’t it.

“Don’t look like that. You said you wanted to learn. Come on, show me what you’ve got.”

It’s true, Jake _did_ say that. He can’t really complain.

After huffing and griping for a little longer, Jake forces himself upright, tries to forget that Evan and Philip are watching him, and gives it as good a shot as he can bear.

_“Do-Re-Me-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do.”_

It’s far from the best he could have done, and he knows it very well, but he also knows _damned_ well that even his best won’t be good enough. It’s never been worth putting in his best effort, not for this, and there’s no reason it would be worth it now.

“Mm.” It’s difficult to glean anything from the indistinct grunt Evan gives at it, though. “And down again, come on.”

_“Do-Ti-La-So-Fa-Me-Re-Do.”_

Again, Evan listens, and appears to mull it over for a moment before turning to Jake once more.

“Now, that wasn’t your best, was it.”

“Well…” Jake looks sheepish. “... No.”

_“Man-Cub.”_ It’s said with a lightheartedly scolding tone as Evan fixes him with a stare. “How _could_ you. _How_ could you not do your best in front of Philip, how _could_ you.”

Philip, when Evan gestures illustratively towards him, is already making a very hammy show of being distraught, one hand at the centre of his chest while he pretends to brush away tears with the other.

Of course. Jake isn’t a nine-year-old standing in his parents’ study anymore, and he’s not singing for his parents or any shitty, stuck up tutor they’ve hired. It’s Philip and Evan he’s singing for, and they’ll praise him for anything he gives them, provided they know he’s actually making an effort.

“Philip.” Jake turns to him, and places both hands over his heart. “I am so sorry. You deserve better than that. Evan, can you show me how to do it right? Because Philip deserves the best of everything, obviously.”

“Obviously,” agrees Evan, nodding. “Very well, then.”

And so that’s what Evan does. He explains, at length, about straightening one’s back and keeping his arms and shoulders open, to give oneself plenty of room to breathe so that he can sing from his chest rather than his mouth or nose, and about confidence, because that’s important too.

“Just fuckin’ belt it out,” he says. “Don’t worry about bein’ good at it, that’ll come later. Just focus on gettin’ yourself confident and gettin’ your form right first.”

And it must be good advice, because Evan’s scale is considerably more impressive than Jake’s was, and not just for Evan’s voice being bigger and deeper, either. Evan _knows_ he can sing, and, moreover, he doesn’t care who might be hearing him. They’re alone in the clearing, and although their fellow Killers might yet be lingering in the woods, none of them are in much of a position to say anything to Evan about what they did or didn’t hear.

Maybe, with time and practice, Jake can learn a little of that confidence too, and when Philip enthusiastically applauds both he and Evan for singing the next set of scales together, it feels like he might already be starting to find it. Suddenly, practicing scales isn’t so bad anymore, and Jake is actually rather disappointed when Evan reluctantly decides that it’s about time he headed down to the campfire to lend Maxie a hand doing the work.

“Can’t sit about all night while Maxie’s out there toilin’ away by himself,” he grumbles, getting to his feet and, raising his arms behind his head and arching his back, having a good stretch. “You keep on with those scales, though, boy. Max’ll be well impressed with you when he comes home, I’ll bet.”

“D’you think we can teach Max to sing, too?” asks Jake, as Evan stiffly bends down to gather his tools back into their bag and pick it up. “You know he’s gonna want to.”

“Oh, absolutely. We’ll certainly give it a go, won’t we, Philip.”

Philip nods. After all, it’s hardly as if they don’t have all the time in the world to practice, none of them are going anywhere.

“Well, then.” Evan stretches again. “I’d best get this lot put away and -”

He freezes, mid-sentence. There’s a jarring clatter as his bag of tools hits the ground, and Jake stares at him.

“What’s the matter?”

Turning around, he looks to Philip for some sort of explanation, but Philip, too, is recoiling in quiet dread at some unknown horror, and a heartbeat or two later, Jake, too, senses it, a strange, stifling pressure in the air, like a kind of silent tinnitus or painless migraine, something that squeezes at the inside of his head and prickles against his skin, makes the hair on his arms stand on end.

The next thing he knows, Philip is leaping upright and frantically urging him to his feet as well.

“Shit! Shit!”

And he’s not doing it quickly enough, evidently, because then Evan is grabbing him by the arm, rushing to pull him close enough to bodily pick him up and carry him at a full run to the shelter before bundling him roughly through the doorway.

“Shut the door, boy!” he snaps. “Shut the door, lock it, and don’t come out ‘til we come and get you, understand!?”

Jake nods hurriedly, already scrambling to find the sheet of corrugated steel that passes for the shelter’s “door” and shove it into place as Evan is running back to Philip. Before he can fully close the door, however, another distinctive sound catches Jake’s ear.

“EVAN! EVAN!” It’s Max, sprinting in a panic out of the woods. “EVAN, I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY!”

“WHAT DID YOU _DO,_ BOY!?”

Evan roars at Max as he dashes to hide behind him, but he doesn’t get time to press the issue; just as Philip comes to join them, trying to offer Max some scant little comfort, an impossibly huge, monstrous form fills the sky, and Jake, watching through the tiniest crack in the door, winces as that hellish feeling of _pressure_ becomes so great and terrible that it starts to make his ears ring.

The Entity descends upon the clearing in a churning, twisting mass of grotesque, spider-like limbs of every size, from the little appendages that Jake used to have to wrestle with when he performed too poorly in a trial to staggeringly gargantuan barbed grapnels, big enough to cleave a skyscraper in two, all of them reaching down from some infinitely high place, their source wholly unseeable.

And there, standing between this incomprehensible lovecraftian colossus and Max, are Evan and Philip, backs straight, shoulders squared and heads high.

With Max still clinging for dear life to him at his back and Philip at his side, his hand on Max’s shoulder, Evan draws himself up to his full height, glares straight up at the endlessly towering thing before them, and folds his arms, defiant. Even as it looms in ever closer, even as one of those truly enormous appendages presses near enough to brush the grass in front of Evan’s feet, neither he nor Philip flinch in the slightest - though the same can’t be said for Max, who can’t even bear to look at the thing as he openly cowers behind Evan’s bulk.

And then, the Entity speaks.

It’s _deafening,_ like the creaking of heavy steel under duress, grating and groaning and screeching and _awful,_ and Jake, desperate to just _make it stop,_ closes and barricades the shelter door as quickly as he can so that he can cover his ears.

“If you’ve an issue with the boy’s performance, you can speak to me!” Jake barely hears Evan declare in response. “I taught him, I coach him! If you’ve an issue with him, you can come to me!”

Jake has never heard the Entity’s “voice” before, but he’s starting to realise that the weird and thoroughly unpleasant feeling of headache-inducing pressure is distantly familiar. It was virtually ever-present over at the campfire, back when he still lived with the other Survivors. They just didn’t know what it was.

Jake had always assumed that the sensation of having the meat inside his skull gradually crushed into a wet, lumpy paste was just a natural result of them all screaming at each other all the time and being constantly on edge around each other, but it was, all along, the Entity, lurking, watching them. The thought of it chills and sickens him to his core, but it makes sense that it would spend nearly all of its time there. The Survivors are, after all, the source of its sustenance. The Killers are just there to wring it out of them.

Between the shelter door being barricaded shut and his ears still being covered, Jake is struggling to hear exactly what’s being said outside, but the snippets of Evan’s obstinate backtalk that he does manage to catch don’t leave much room for doubt, even without being able to understand the Entity’s side of the conversation. He keeps hearing Evan say, “Come to me,” and “Deal with me,” things like that, things that deflect the blame for whatever crime the Entity considers Max to be guilty of away from Max and onto himself. He’s responsible for Max, so if Max hasn’t been pulling his weight, he’ll take the punishment for it.

He’s afraid of the Entity. Jake knows that. He’s been punished before for insubordination, grossly so, and hasn’t argued with the Entity for his own sake since. And yet, now that it’s _Max_ on the chopping block, Evan has stepped up to protect him. Beneath all the posturing and arguing he’s doing, daring the Entity to take its anger out on him instead of Max, he must be terrified.

Some gruff assurances are given that Max’s underperformance will be dealt with accordingly.

“I will see to it that we don’t have this problem again,” Evan says, curtly, “And if you aren’t satisfied with him after that -” He takes a deep breath. “- You can come and talk to _me_ about it. Seein’ as it’ll be _my_ fault.”

The Entity gives a low, droning rumble, and then Jake hears no more. That relentlessly oppressive atmosphere gradually dissipates, bit by bit, until he can be sure that the Entity has once again become _him upstairs,_ the faceless upper management, conspicuous in being unseen, and it’s not too much longer after that until Philip comes to knock on the shelter door.

The instant he can reach him, Philip is pulling him into a very relieved hug. They’ve gotten away with hiding him, it seems, and Jake buries his face in his cloak, hugging him back until his arms ache.

All is not well in the clearing, however.

With the immediate danger passed, it’s a fair bet that the adrenaline that saw Evan through his little board meeting with _him upstairs_ has left him, and he’s now just sort of… standing there. He’s not really focusing on anyone or anything, arms by his sides, head lowered, and he really does have the look of someone who’s only now realising what he’s said and done. Max, for once, has read him well enough to be worried, and has backed well, well away from him, and, now that Philip knows that Jake is safe and in one piece, they’re both going to Max to soothe him. Surely, they all know how much trouble Max is going to be in for bringing the Entity into their backyard.

“You.” Slowly, Evan gathers himself enough to turn around and face Max, growling through gritted teeth. “You, you…”

Max edges anxiously behind Philip as Evan storms towards the three of them, his fear giving way to rapidly amplifying rage.

“What the _fuck_ have you done, boy!?” he bellows, furious. “I knew it! I _knew_ you couldn’t be trusted to keep on at the work if I let you get chummy with him, I _knew_ it! I should never have let you speak to him!”

Oh no.

“Evan,” Max already has tears in his eyes as he tries to protest. “I didn’t-”

“Shut up!” snaps Evan, only growing angrier for it. “You shut your _fucking_ mouth, boy! And you,” he snarls, shaking a finger at Jake and prompting Philip to stand in front of him, too, “You’ve got to go.”

No, no. _Please,_ no.

“Evan! No!”

“I said _shut up,_ boy! Do you realise what you’ve brought down on us!?”  

Oh god, no. It’s happening again.

“I gave you a chance, Max,” Evan growls, mercifully stopping short of touching anyone while Philip is stood between him and them. “I gave you a _fucking_ chance, and this is what we get, is it!?”

Jake can feel himself trembling as he huddles under Philip’s arm. This can’t be happening, it can’t be. They _wanted_ him, they did; he didn’t even do anything wrong this time. They loved him and wanted him but it’s still all gone to shit in the blink of an eye.

“Philip, get out of the way!” Philip doesn’t budge as Evan tries to muscle up to him. “The Man-Cub has to go!”

Scowling, Philip straightens his back and glares, coming chest to chest with Evan as he does so. He will most certainly _not_ get out of the way.

“Philip, you don’t understand! If the work doesn’t get done, he’ll come down on all of us! Get out of the way!”

“Evan, _please!”_ Again, Max begs Evan to listen. “It weren’t-”

“SHUT UP!” Again, Evan violently shuts him down. “Philip, for the last time, _move!_ I don’t care how he does it, but the Man-Cub _has_ to-”

The loud crack of the back of Philip’s hand making harsh contact with Evan’s face cuts him off, hitting him hard enough to snap his head to the side and stagger him.

A heavy, frightening silence follows. Jake’s never seen Philip strike anyone out of anger before, and evidently, neither has Max, who is now standing a good few steps back with his hands clamped over his mouth in horrified shock. Evan, too, takes a long time to react, and when he eventually does straighten up and turn to stare at Philip, Jake is terrified that he’s going to hit him back.

But the moments pass, and he never does.

“... You…” Evan breathes, hurt and bewildered. “... You _hit_ me!”

Philip, still scowling and bristling, growls at him. It’s enough to cow him into backing away, and perhaps now, Evan will stop and count to ten before he says anything more. Indeed, he’s looking around, then, at Philip, Max and Jake, and his hair-trigger rage is distinctly absent as the realisation of what he’s just said and done creeps in to take its place.

He swallows.

“Will ya listen to me now!?” shouts Max, finding some courage. “It weren’t even nothin’ to do with the Man-Cub! You told me I gotta keep workin’ hard if he was gonna stay to prove I wouldn’t fuck it all up, an’ I did! I worked _extra hard_ an’ did _heaps_ better than I did before! Only,” he says, his voice dropping as his gaze drifts towards the ground, “When I started doin’ _too much_ better, he made it so much harder, gave ‘em all kinds’a new things an’ let ‘em do all kinds’a stuff, an’ then it weren’t fun no more.”

“... So you decided that the best thing to do would be to go back to what you were doin’ before.” Evan, thank christ, sounds far more even-headed now, though still greatly chagrined. “You _fucking_ idiot. Did you not think he’d have something to say about it!?”

“Well, I…” Max frowns, hanging his head. “... I guess I did, I just… I just didn’t know it’d be that bad. I just wanted things to be like they were,” he whimpers. “I didn’t mean to make him mad or get us all in trouble.”

“Max…” Evan sighs. “... Why didn’t you come and talk to me about this?”

“You would’a just said that that’s how it’s gotta be!” cries Max. “You always say that! You would’a said, ‘Oh, sorry, Max! You’re stuck doin’ it this shitty way now! I guess you just gotta live with it!’” The impression comes with some frustrated theatrics. “An’ that would’a been it!”

It’s true; he can’t really argue with that, and there’s another deeply unpleasant stretch of silence as he realises it.

“Apologise to the Man-Cub.”

“... What?”

“Apologise to the Man-Cub!” Max demands again, louder this time, as he points at Jake. “You said all that shit about him like it was his fault! Say you’re sorry!”

Suddenly, Evan can barely even _look_ at Jake. He _did_ say those things, didn’t he, and now, with everyone’s eyes on him, he’s regretting it intensely. He’s soon making a concerted effort not to look at _anybody,_ an effort that he doubles when Philip, still with his arm tightly around Jake, gives an irately expectant cock of his head.

And, when he doesn’t cough up that apology quickly enough, Max presses him harder.

“Even if it _was_ the Man-Cub’s fault, I wouldn’t care!” he says, angrily. “I know what happens when we get in trouble, you used to say it to me all the time! That I didn’t wanna end up lookin’ like you! But see, if the Man-Cub has to go back where he came from, he’s gonna have to go back in the trials, and then _he’s_ gonna get hurt! Over an’ over! That’s true, ain’t it!?”

“... Yes, Max,” Evan quietly replies, seeing that he’s not going to be let off the hook without answering. “That is true.”

“Well, the way I see it,” Max tells him, thumbing his own chest with indignance, “It’s either gonna be him or me who gets hurt, ain’t it. And if I gotta choose,” he goes on, glaring at Evan whether he’s looking back at him or not, “Then I want it to be me!”

Slowly, Evan forces himself to make eye contact with Philip, who gives an affirmative nod. He’s with Max on this, adamantly so.

“Apologise to the Man-Cub,” Max says, again. “Say you’re sorry!”

Evan lingers for a while, before casting his gaze skywards and slipping his hands under his mask to rub his face.

“God help me,” he mutters. “What a coward I’ve become.”

With another, deeper, vastly more remorseful sigh, he sinks to one knee in front of Jake, who can only keep holding onto Philip as he watches Evan do it.

“Man-Cub, I _am_ sorry,” he murmurs, his voice hung with sincere guilt. “I know this is going to sound like the most… _transparent_ nonsense, but I didn’t mean those things I said, I was just…” He glances away, ashamed. “... I was frightened, alright?” he admits. “Him upstairs, he frightens me, and I, I didn’t think before I spoke. I don’t want you to go. I don’t.”

He reaches for Jake, goes to pat his shoulder or ruffle his hair, but when Jake pulls away from him - and when Philip responds to Jake pulling away by holding him even tighter, shielding him from Evan - he quickly draws his hand away, hesitating for a moment before giving a wordless, resigned nod, as though he really ought to have expected it.

“Well.” Evan’s voice becomes almost a whisper. “I suppose some things can’t be taken back, can they. As always, Man-Cub,” he tells Jake, wearily, “You don’t have to forgive me. I would never expect you to forgive me. But… I am sorry. And I really don’t want you to go. It would break my heart if you went away. Please. I didn’t mean it.”

“... I understand.”

Jake’s own voice comes out weak and quavering, but he says it as firmly as he can, and he hears Evan swallow again before dipping his head where he kneels.

“Well.” Once again, Evan forces himself to look at the people around him. “I suppose I’d better shuffle off to the campfire, hadn’t I. God knows,” he sighs, standing up, “At least I’m good for that.”

None of them say or do anything to stop him as he turns and trudges towards the treeline, and from there into the woods and out of sight, and it’s a good while after he’s gone before they even say anything to each other. After a while, though, Max quietly tugs on Philip’s cloak.

“... Can we go in the shelter now? I don’t wanna be outside no more.”

Philip nods, putting his free arm around Max to gather him up before the three of them head inside the shelter. Even that, however, is not enough to comfort Max after everything that’s just happened.

“... Philip, can we close the door? I’m scared.”

Christ. He’s more afraid of him upstairs than he is of being shut in, more desperate to hide and feel like nobody can see him than he is to be able to see outside. Philip is concerned by the request too, and to begin with, he only places the sheet of corrugated steel loosely over the doorway, hoping to offer Max the security he’s seeking without making him feel trapped, but Max insists that he wants it closed properly, and won’t settle until Philip barricades it shut.

After that, the three of them huddle together at the back of the shelter, under the crude but nonetheless heartfelt and cherished work of collaborative art they hung up on the wall there earlier in the night, Philip with an arm around Max and Jake each as they curl up against him.

“... You got your face painted like Philip’s.”

At Max’s observation, Jake lifts his head. With his mind reeling over the events that have just transpired in the clearing, he’d forgotten all about his paints, and it takes him a few moments of staring dumbly at Max before he remembers that yes, he did.

“Oh.” He can’t make himself smile about it, though. “Yeah.”

In an effort to soothe him, Philip tenderly strokes Jake’s hair, and gives him a reassuring squeeze. At least Jake doesn’t have to worry about whether Philip wants him or not, and it does go some way towards making him feel a little better. Max, too, stuck his neck out much farther than Jake could have ever asked of him. They both stood up for him, and at a time when it really mattered, too, which on its own is more than anyone else has ever done for him.

“Man.” He cuddles up as close to Philip as he can. “I love you guys. I don’t wanna go.”

“You don’t have to!” Max is quick to console him. “We love you, too! So you don’t gotta go nowhere, okay?”

“Thanks, Max. And thanks for sticking up for me, too. I really appreciate it.”

“That’s okay! I was only tellin’ the truth,” he says, shrugging. “Somebody had to say it.”

“Thanks, man. That means a lot.” Still, it’s going to take more than that to chase the doubt from Jake’s mind, and to that end, he looks up at Philip. “... Philip, did Evan mean that stuff he said? Has he just been tolerating me this whole time?”

_No. No. No._

Philip shakes his head vehemently, and gives Jake a vigorous nuzzling to further drive the point home. Even as he’s being kissed and sung to, though, he can’t bring himself to simply take Philip’s word for it.

“... How do you know?”

Ah. Now that’s a question that’s going to take some answering, and Philip takes a few moments to think about how he’s going to do it. Eventually, though, he slips his arms from around Max and Jake to free his hands, and he begins to explain, very carefully, pausing occasionally to ask Jake to repeat what he’s just said to make sure that he and Max are understanding him correctly.

He and Evan have lived here together for a very, very long time, he tells them. He knows Evan very well, and he knows that Evan doesn’t cope well with being afraid. There’s truthfully very little that someone like Evan has to be afraid of, but when he does feel cornered, when he finds himself in a fight that he can’t win, he stops thinking clearly, stops listening to people, and he can say and do some very silly things because of it, often things that he doesn’t really mean, and that he’ll regret later. Being big, loud and aggressive has obviously got him the results he wanted in the past, so that, too, is something Evan falls back on when nothing else is working, and it can be difficult to get through to him once he starts channeling his fear into anger like that.

“Is that why you had to hit him?” asks Max, once he’s seen Philip nodding at Jake’s retelling of this sorry story. “To make him listen?”

_Yes,_ Philip replies, sadly. He hates hitting anyone, he says, and it hurt to do it, but he had to make Evan stop, immediately. There was too much at stake to let him carry on like that.

Jake peers up at him.

“... Has he ever turned on you like that?”

_… Yes._

“... Did he hit you?”

_No, no, of course not._ Philip is eager to dispel any fears Jake has about that, hands waving frantically at the suggestion of it. _Never. Of course not._

Evan had told him a secret, he explains. A bad secret, something he’d done, and he’d obviously spent a long time justifying it to himself without being challenged on it, because when Philip _did_ challenge him, and not only that but made it clear that he didn’t approve, Evan panicked, just like he did outside earlier on, and, just like earlier, he’d flown into a rage and turned on Philip, and said all kinds of awful things. Evan never struck him - never even threatened it - but it was more than Philip was willing to stand for.

Max stares. This is a tale from a time before he arrived, and, as such, he’s never heard it before.

“What did you do?”

Philip gives a soft, but nonetheless remorseful sigh.

_I left,_ he replies, finally.

“You _left_ him?” Jake is staring too, now. “Jesus.”

Still, Jake’s willing to bet that he knows what that secret was. He’s not surprised that Philip would be turned off by it, and getting bellowed at for having something to say about it would certainly be a reasonable tipping point for anyone.

“Did’ja come back?”

He chuckles at that. Of course he did. He’s here now, after all.

“But why did he tell about it if it was such a bad secret?” asks Max. “Did he think you wouldn’t care?”

_He knew I wouldn’t like it,_ says Philip, shaking his head. _He was afraid to tell me._

He’d been very nervous the whole time he was trying to talk about it, Philip recalls. He’d known full well that it was probably going to end poorly, but Evan knew that Philip was growing to care for him, and he didn’t think that it was fair that Philip should fall in love with him on false pretenses, without knowing everything about him. He’d said at the time that it would feel too much like lying, if he let Philip grow fond of him that way when, all along, he was keeping this terrible secret that he knew Philip wouldn’t like.

So he told him, thinking that he’d be brave enough to cope no matter how Philip reacted, but he turned out not to be as brave as he’d thought. He panicked, snapped, and immediately regretted it - he was apologising and begging for forgiveness before Philip had even started walking away - but by then it was too late.

Evan told Philip even more of the truth than he’d intended, it seems.

“... What made you come back?” Jake is genuinely curious, now. “I mean… why would you?”

Philip is eager to stress that he did not come back for a long time. No, he explains, waving a finger, it took him a good, long while to decide that he wanted to give Evan another chance. Although, he admits that it did sway him somewhat when he returned and Evan immediately began apologising all over again, as if he’d thought of nothing else the whole time Philip had been away.

_It touched my heart,_ Philip says, laying his hand over his chest, _That he had missed me so much. But I told him that if he wanted me to stay, then he would have to change for the better, and he promised me that he would._

It was a promise that Philip had been skeptical of at first. Promises are easy things to make. But Evan _did_ change. He made an enormous effort to change, in fact, and now Philip usually only has to stand there and look at him for him to stop what he’s doing and think twice about it.

Usually.

“I guess he broke his promise out there, huh.” Max frowns. “Ain’t like him to break a promise.”

“I saw what he did, though,” remarks Jake, a little sadly. “He put himself between that fucker and us - he must’ve been scared, but he still did it.”

_Evan loves us,_ says Philip, with both hands over his heart now. _Very much. He would do anything for us, I know. But he_ was _frightened, for us as much as for himself, and he…_

Here, Philip pauses, wondering how best to get his meaning across, and after a while, takes his level hand, and makes a steep downwards dipping motion with it.

“He slipped back into old habits,” Jake interprets. Philip nods.

_But, it is not for me to decide whether Evan deserves to be forgiven this time,_ he says. _I was not the one he hurt today. It will be you,_ he tells Jake, tapping him on the chest, _Who has to decide._

That’s true. And Jake doesn’t have to forgive him, either; Evan has always been very clear, whenever he’s apologised for anything, that it isn’t forgiveness that he’s asking for. He’s only ever asked that Jake _accept his apology,_ nothing more. It’s perfectly fine and acceptable to do one and not the other.

To hear that he begged Philip to forgive him for that first explosive misstep, on that note, is quite surprising. What would not be a surprise, however, would be to hear that Philip had taught him not to expect forgiveness as a given result of his apologies. Philip is good at teaching people things like that, and, from what Jake remembers hearing about the person Evan used to be, it seems like something he would need to learn. There’s no doubt that Evan has made an effort to fulfill that old promise to change for the better, that’s for sure, and Jake supposes that, after keeping that promise for so long, it’s not unreasonable that he’d buckle under pressure and fail to uphold it at least once. Evan _is_ only human, underneath it all.

Only human, and facing up to a nightmarish, leviathan abomination like the Entity, at that. When he thinks about what he saw Evan standing up to, before he lost his nerve and shut the door, Jake can’t really blame him for panicking and having a momentary lapse in judgement like that. Being here has desensitized him in many ways; that he’d even _think_ about staying upset with Evan after that now seems very deeply unfair.

Besides, it’s hardly as if Evan is one of those assholes who makes phony apologies and promises just to appease the people he hurts or to get himself out of trouble and then just _carries on being shitty,_ is it. Jake knew plenty of folks like that back in college - hell, he knew people like that back at the campfire - and although Evan is far from perfect, he’s certainly not _like that._ Christ knows Philip wouldn’t stand for it.

Max tries to ask Jake what he thinks he’ll do when Evan comes home, but Philip gently corrects him.

_Let him think about it,_ he says, tapping his temple. _Don’t interfere._

“Okay.” He only manages to stay quiet for a moment, though. “... Your paints are pretty, Man-Cub. I like ‘em!”

“Philip did a great job, didn’t he?” Jake grins. “I like ‘em, too.”

“Are you gonna stay like that?”

“Man, I want to.”

So they sit there, and they talk, smile, laugh, and it feels deceptively like everything is back to normal already. But it’s not, is it, and Jake’s heart almost leaps into his throat when he hears that somewhat wary knock on the shelter door a good while later.

“... May I come in?”

As low and tentative as Evan’s tone may be, it still gives Jake a start for the realisation that he’s going to have to deal with the situation that Evan has created between them. Philip, too, sits up at the sound of Evan’s voice, but quickly puts his own concerns aside in favour of offering Jake some solace, putting an arm around him and softly kissing his hair. It’s Jake’s call to make as to whether Evan is allowed to come in or not, and Philip is just there to back him up, whatever he decides. Max, too, remains quiet, taking Philip’s cue as he anxiously watches, awaiting Jake’s answer.

Well. He’s going to want to patch things up, isn’t he, and it wouldn’t be fair to make him do that from the other side of the door. Turning to Philip, Jake nods, and Philip pauses briefly to kiss him again before moving to the other end of the shelter, lifting the plank that barricades the door, and opening it. He and Evan share some brief, uneasy eye contact, but he shortly moves aside to let Evan in, and, after looking over his shoulder to ask Max if he still wants the door closed (he does), Philip returns to his spot with Jake and Max to wait and see what Evan has to say for himself.

With the three of them looking back at him, Evan isn’t in a hurry to say anything, and he keeps his head down as he gingerly seats himself a little way away from them. But, as ever, Max can’t bear the uncomfortable silence for long, and shyly tries to break the ice.

“... Hi, Evan.”

“Hello, Max.” Evan replies just as quietly. “Philip.” He nods in greeting. “Man-Cub.”

“Hey.” As Philip gives a nod in return, Jake, too, is reluctant speak too loudly.

It’s all they manage. Nobody wants to look at each other, let alone say anything, but in the end, Evan scrapes together the guts to make an attempt at fixing this mess he’s caused.

“Man-Cub.” He still can’t make himself look up, but he does, at least, shift where he’s sitting to face Jake as he addresses him. “Listen. I _am_ sorry for what I said, and I know that I can’t just take it back, but… would you at least permit me to explain myself so that you can understand? Again, I daren’t ask you to forgive me, but may I at least do that? Please?”

Jake nods.

“Go ahead.”

“Thank you.”

He has to admit, watching Evan sit there, trying to pick his words as carefully as he can, that he’s never actually been in this position before, where someone has wronged him and felt sincerely bad enough about it to make it up to him like this. Most of the people in Jake’s life, like the guys back at the campfire, the people he used to know in college, _his parents,_ would have to have a gun to their head before they’d even so much as admit that they’d fucked up, and truthfully, he’s not really sure how to react to Evan being actually, genuinely sorry.

At least he knows what not to do, though. Jake has had plenty of experience with people who wouldn’t let him explain or apologise for anything, who just wanted to hit back at him for slighting them whether he meant to do it or not, and if Evan wants to explain himself, Jake will hear him out.

“Look,” Evan mutters, with the kind of heavy fatigue in his voice that suggests he’s been thinking very hard about this and what he ought to say for a good, long while, “I’m not making excuses for myself. But him upstairs, he _does_ frighten me, not just for what he’s done to me and might do to me again, but for what he might do to all of us. He barely ever shows himself to us - he stays over where your old lot stay, he stays where the meat is - but if he does…” He shakes his head. “... If he does come here, it means that someone is in a great deal of trouble. I don’t want anybody gettin’ into trouble with him, Man-Cub. Because if he decides that he wants to punish you for something, you don’t get to just... just… get an earful from him or a slap on the wrist and then walk away. You _stay_ punished. And I was so afraid that that was what Max was gonna get, I just…”

“... You stopped thinking.”

“Yes.”

“... I can understand that. But…” It’s alright, Jake reminds himself. He can question Evan, he can. He’ll be decent about it. “... Why was turning on _me_ and telling me that I had to leave the first solution you came to, man?” He can’t hide the hurt in his voice when he does it, though. “I mean, people don’t just _say_ things out of the blue, do they,” he goes on, as Philip squeezes his shoulder. “You don’t blurt shit out like that unless it’s already in your head! You don’t reach for it in a, in a heated moment unless it’s already there, waiting to be reached for! Is that really what you’ve been thinking about me, all this time? That, that I’m a, a fucking _ticking timebomb_ waiting to blow up in your face?”

“No! No!” Finally, Evan does look at him properly, desperate to correct him. “Of course not! Man-Cub, for fucks sake, I love you! I do! I can’t count the ways in which you’ve made my life - _all_ of our lives - so much better, just for being here with us! And that’s…” His expression remains as impossible to read as ever, but his chest heaves with the weighty sigh that he gives. “... That’s what I think of when I look at you,” he murmurs. “It is. And I’m so, so sorry that I gave you reason to think otherwise, Man-Cub, I am. But…”

There’s another pause as Evan takes a deep breath, and swallows.

“... I would be lying,” he forces himself to say, “If I told you that that worry did not linger often at the back of my mind. Because it does. Because him upstairs frightens me, and I would be a fool if I didn’t live in fear of what I know he’d love to do to us if we gave him the excuse. But whenever that worry rears its ugly head, I choose not to listen to it. Because that’s what you have to do, when you have worries like that, worries that you know will lay waste to everything you care about given half a chance, isn’t it. You do your best to put ‘em aside and listen to… well.”

Evan gestures broadly at Jake, Max and Philip, sitting together at the back of the shelter.

“The things that matter more. The things that are real and true. So you are right, Man-Cub,” he tells Jake, sadly. “You’re right. It _was_ there, I _did_ reach for it. Because him upstairs frightens me, and everything seemed to be panning out in exactly the way that would have frightened me the most. But that doesn’t mean that that it was right, or real, or true. And I’m sorry that you had to suffer because I couldn’t keep my head on straight.”

Only human. Only human, with fears, doubts and worries, just like Jake’s fears, doubts and worries. Not unreasonable, by any stretch, but destructive if they’re afforded too much influence, if they’re not beaten down in favour of more helpful notions and continually kept in check.

“Shit.” Jake can hear his own voice beginning to break. “... You really _fucking_ hurt me, man!” he cries. “I thought I was getting thrown out again! I thought… I thought…”

“Oh god, Man-Cub, no. No.”

For a moment, Evan leans for him, and Jake sees him lift his arms before he corrects himself. Evan desperately wants to reach for him, to go to him and hug him, Jake realises, but he’s not sure enough that Jake will want any of it from him to actually go in for it, and he’s trying really quite hard to stay put until he gets some cue that he’s welcome to do otherwise.

“Man-Cub, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, I’m so sorry.”

Jake sits there, Philip’s arm still around him, and takes a long, shuddering breath. He doesn’t _want_ to be angry with Evan, he doesn’t _want_ to ruin everything they have here. But, at the same time, a lifetime or more of being surrounded by people who turned out not to care about him when they were tested in some way is making it so _tempting_ to disbelieve the sincerity of Evan’s apologies. Not _easy,_ per se, because Jake knows Evan better than that; he’s always so dead set on being appropriately upstanding and proper that he must be _fucking frantic_ to be showing himself up like this. But it’s tempting. Very, very tempting.

_You have to trust him, though. Or you’ll be just as guilty of letting your fears fuck things up as he is, won’t you._

But it’s not about being _less guilty_ than him, is it. It’s about _fixing the problem._

Evan is already getting to his knees to catch him when Jake hurls himself into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he says, again, hugging Jake as tightly as he dares to. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” It is still very, very tightly, mind you, but Jake can just barely make himself heard. “I forgive you, I do. Just don’t do it again. Please, don’t do it again.”

“I won’t, I won’t. Never again, Man-Cub, I swear.”

“You promise?”

“I promise, Man-Cub, I promise. Never again. No more trials for you,” he mutters, lowering his head enough that he can touch his temple to Jake’s. “Your place is here with us, and him upstairs can take you back over my dead body.”

Dear god, he’s telling the truth, he has to be. Nobody who turned out to be lying ever held Jake so closely or so earnestly. He can feel Evan’s heartbeat as much as he can hear it, thundering away under his sternum like nothing he’s ever known, gradually beginning to slow as the two of them kneel there in the hay. Before too long, Philip is there too, and then Max, and there, in amongst them all and wholly unable to keep the grin from his face, Jake knows for sure that he’s in the right place.

“Him upstairs has taken family from me before,” he hears Evan say. “I’ll not let him do it again.”

“You had a family before us?” Max sits back far enough to give Evan an inquiring look. “Who was that?”

“Before I came here, even,” Evan replies, gently loosening his embrace around them all. “You remember me talkin’ about my dad, don’t you?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, he was my family.”

This concept of “family” is a new one for Max. It goes without saying that he wouldn’t really know what it was, and sure enough, the next question he asks is a fairly predictable one.

“... What’s a dad?”

“Well, it’s…” There’s a lot of things that Evan would have to explain to answer that one. “... Hm.”

Jake knows what to say to make him understand, though.

“It’s like Evan, Max.”

“Oh! Oh, okay.”

There have been many occasions on which Jake has sincerely wished that he could see Evan’s face, and this is certainly one of them, given that Evan is definitely giving him _a look,_ but he’s got no way of telling what that look actually is. He shrugs, still smiling, and Evan just shakes his head before dropping the issue entirely and moving on.

“Before I came here,” he says, pressing on, “My dad was my family, the only family I had, and he looked after me until he got sick enough that I had to look after him. And I wanted to _keep_ looking after him, but him upstairs took me away, made me leave him. I didn’t want to, but…”

He spreads his arms, and gestures towards himself, and the terrible open wounds and pieces of lodged steel that litter his body.

“So that’s how you got like that, huh.”

“Yes, Max. I told him ‘no’, and this is what I got.”

“Man.” Max pouts, brow creasing in thought. “... But… how come he took you away? If you were just lookin’ after your dad?”

“Well, Max, that’s…” He grapples with it briefly, then sighs, giving in. “... I suppose you and the Man-Cub deserve to know, don’t you.”

As Max stares at him, surely realising what, exactly, Evan is referring to, Philip lightly touches his arm, and it’s more than enough to confirm any suspicions Jake might have had. He already knows this “bad secret” that Evan is about to tell, but of course, Evan doesn’t remember, does he, and if Evan’s going to get up the courage to come clean with he and Max about it, Jake won’t sully it for him by saying anything.

And so, with Philip’s unspoken but nevertheless present and supportive encouragement, Evan begins to tell the story of how he came to be here, all that time ago, about his father, about the mine, everything. Jake’s heard all the spiel about Evan’s father being a good, upstanding gentleman, too, how Evan used to look up to him and wanted nothing more than to please him and be like him, but he’s never heard it in such detail before. Evan’s father, it turns out, was well loved by everyone who knew him, and made an effort to be worthy of it. When he’d bought the land and found the iron under it, his first thought had been to use the mine to help enrich other people’s lives.

Naturally, since Max is hearing this story for the first time, though, Evan has to stop periodically to answer his questions, which he does, very patiently and as well as he can.

“What’s a mine?”

“Well, it’s a big hole that you dig to find valuable things under the ground, very deep down.”

“Like what?”

“Like iron. Like what your chainsaw’s made out of, and my cleaver, and the shelter.”

“That stuff all comes outta the ground!?”

“That’s right. Only, not in pieces like we have. It’s all mixed up in the rocks, and to get it out, you have to dig the rocks out of the ground, and put them in a big fire with a lid on called a refinery to melt the iron and get it out. Then you can use it.”

“Oh! What did you do with it?”

“We made it into big, uh, like bricks, I suppose. So they’d be easy to pack up and send away for other people to make into things.”

“You gave it all away to people?”

“Well, no. We sold it. Traded it for money.”

“What’s money?”

“Well, say I had something that you wanted, Maxie, but I wanted something in return for it, and you didn’t have anything that I could make any use of. Money is a, a go-between for things like that. You could _sell_ something of yours that you didn’t want anymore, that is, you could trade it to someone who _did_ want it for money, and then come back to me, and give me that money in exchange for the thing that I had that _you_ wanted. Does that make sense?”

“Mhm! So it’s kind of like a thing that everybody wants, huh.”

“Yeah. But it’s not useful on its own. It’s just for trading for things.”

“Huh. So did’ja get lotsa money?”

“We did!”

“What did you trade it for?”

“A lot of it had to go back into the mine - not literally,” Evan hastens to clarify, “Obviously not literally. What I mean is that we had to give people money in exchange for things we needed to keep the mine running and make it better, so we could get more iron out of it.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like people to go into the mine and dig the iron out for us. We weren’t doin’ it ourselves.”

“Why not?”

“Well, we couldn’t, Maxie. Mining’s tough, and there were only me and dad. We couldn’t do it on our own, so we had to give people money in exchange for them goin’ down and diggin’ the iron out.”

“Ohh, okay. So…” Oh, boy. The gears are really turning now. “... Where’d you get the mine from?”

“My dad bought it. With money. Someone had the land, my dad traded money for it, and then it belonged to us.”

“So then you used that to get more money?”

“Yes. So we could trade it for more things, like a nice place to live and having good food to eat and clothes to wear and what have you.”

“But you said you gave the money to the people who were diggin’ the iron out for you.”

“Well, we did. Some of it.”

“Does that mean they got to have a nice place to live an’ good food an’ clothes to wear, too?”

“Well, I.” He gestures uneasily. “We didn’t give them as much as we gave ourselves, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

“But they were diggin’ the iron out for you, you said you couldn’t’a done it yourself.”

“That’s right.”

“So you wouldn’t’a been able to have none’a that if it weren’t for those people doin’ it for you, right?”

“Well, no.”

“So they should’a got lotsa money too, right?”

Evan rubs his chin, his gaze dropping briefly.

“... I think we’re gettin’ sidetracked here, Maxie.”

“But that’s right,” Max insists. “Ain’t it?”

There’s something deeply amusing about watching Evan squirm under Max’s persistent questioning, and Jake and Philip share a stifled chuckle between them at it. Max has only known what money and trade are for about two minutes, but he’s already in the business of dismantling capitalism at its core, apparently, and Evan’s patience is being considerably tested by it.

“Well, _yes,_ Max, but if it weren’t for my dad havin’ the mine, they wouldn’t be able to get money for workin’ in it, would they.”

“That just means you both should’a got the same, don’t it? ‘Cause neither of you could’a got no money without the other, right?”

“That’s true, but -”

“- An’ it could’a been anybody’s mine if your dad din’t get it with money he already had, what if it’d belonged to one’a them?”

“Yeah, Evan.” Jake can’t resist, now. “What if the mine had belonged to the workers?”

“You shut up. Look,” Evan says, hands rigid, “I’m not sayin’ that the arrangement we had was perfect, alright? But that was the way of the world when I left it, and the workers thought it was fine and good as long as they had enough to feed their families and live decently, which my dad always made sure that they did. _Moving on,_ the mine was our business, and my dad made an effort to run it in a way that everyone involved agreed was fair.”

He takes a few moments to give Jake and Max each a good glaring at, to make absolutely certain that there are no further questions, before he continues.

The mine was very successful, he explains, and yes, he and his father did make an awful lot of money, which mostly got poured into expanding the mine and employing more people to work in it, and this went on until Evan started helping his father run the business more officially as it became too much for one man to manage alone. Evan had some ideas of his own about how to improve things and make more profits, but it was his father’s business, at the end of the day, and he had the final say on how they ran things.

At least, until his father fell ill during a particularly harsh winter, and never really fully recovered. It hadn’t seemed too terribly bad to begin with, he says, but over the next year or two, Evan could only watch as his father dwindled and wasted away until he couldn’t even participate in the running of the mine anymore. It was, for all intents and purposes, now _Evan’s_ mine, and he became determined to run it well, for his father’s sake.

And run it well he did.

“Those ideas I’d had,” he tells Jake and Max, “I started puttin’ ‘em into practice. They were just little things at first, cuttin’ a corner here and there where I thought we might’ve been spending money needlessly, and you know, it worked! It did! We made more money! A lot more money! I ran it by him before I did anything, and he was pleased with me! So, y’know, I carried on like that.”

But the thing about having a lot of money, Evan regretfully admits, is that it has a way of changing a person.

“When you have a lot of money, you can have anything you want, almost. It’s very seldom that you can’t get somethin’ just by throwin’ enough money at it, and after a while, you know, you’ll start gettin’ the idea that you _should_ be able to have anything you want, that you’re _owed_ it, just by virtue of you havin’ that money. And, because you can have anything you want, you start thinkin’ that havin’ money makes you _better_ than other people, start seein’ yourself as bein’ _apart_ from them, and before you know it, you’ve stopped carin’ about other people altogether, if they’re not your own. Because you only care about havin’ more money.”

The people who worked the mine stopped being people, and became a means to an end, an expense, a corner Evan could cut to increase profits further. With Evan’s father being too feeble and sickly to curb his ambitions, those miners soon found themselves working longer hours for less pay, in a mine that was growing increasingly dangerous as Evan found it cheaper to bribe - or more often simply threaten - would-be whistleblowers than to maintain any kind of safety there, and men who’d been loyal to Evan’s father for years became too fearful of Evan to complain about his tactics.

“But you already had so much!” Max is appalled. “You did all that ‘n’ gave ‘em even _less!?_ So you could have even more!? Evan! What the fuck!”

“I know, I know.” Raising his hands in submission, Evan isn’t keen to argue with him for it. “It was bad, I know it was. And I think some part of me probably knew that it was bad at the time, but… I found ways to explain it away, to make it sound alright. Doin’ right by those people in the mine would’ve meant givin’ up a little of what I had, what I thought was mine, and I didn’t think they deserved it.”

“Why the fuck not!?”

“Because they weren’t people like _me,_ Max! Runnin’ the business took wit and good sense, but any dullard could go down a hole ‘n’ dig, and that’s why I had all the money and they were eatin’ dirt!”

“But you only had all’a that money ‘cuz they did the work for you!”

“Exactly! And my dad would’ve told me that if he’d been able! But he wasn’t, was he, so I was left to my own godawful selfish devices, and _I_ thought I was doin’ superbly!”

And so, the profits continued to climb, and the MacMillan estate continued to flourish, but there was one thing that no amount of money could achieve, it seemed.

“... Didja get enough money to make your dad better?” He asks the question warily, as if he already knows the answer.

“No.” Evan shakes his head. “No, I didn’t. Everything money could buy, I tried, but…” He sighs. “He just kept gettin’ worse, didn’t he. I drove myself half mad with frustration for not bein’ able to do anythin’ about it, wound up chasin’ everybody else away until it was just me and him, just in case they were behind it; all the servants, the doctors, everyone. In the end, he couldn’t even leave the house anymore. Couldn’t go to the opera, couldn’t visit the mine, nothin’.”

Meanwhile, the people who worked the mines, they knew Evan’s father was ailing badly. They’d known for a long time, and when Mr MacMillan Sr. stopped making appearances altogether, they were soon getting ideas of their own. It was, after all, Evan’s father, the man who had treated them fairly and made himself a friend to everyone, that they were loyal to, not Evan himself, and when they cottoned on that their former benefactor wasn’t long for his mortal coil, they were ready to turn on Evan en masse for the way he’d treated them.

Evan, however, had become so utterly entrenched in his self-centred greed that he’d come to view those workers as something not only lesser than himself, but _less than human,_ and, as one would imagine, when he caught wind of what they were planning, he could only view them as a threat to be neutralised, rather than human people to be negotiated with.

“I thought I was protectin’ my father,” he mutters, hanging his head. “I couldn’t imagine that those people had anything but bad intentions for both of us, that they were anything but _thieves_ and _vultures,_ because that’s what poor people look like, when you’ve been rich for too long. So, I… decided that the best thing I could do was… do away with ‘em. The lot of ‘em. Because any dullard could go down a hole ‘n’ dig. I could just replace ‘em, couldn’t I. There’s always someone lookin’ for work, isn’t there.”

_Vultures._ That’s what he’d said, back when he’d unwittingly told Jake this story the first time, but back then, he’d still been angry at them. Here and now, though, Evan seems thoroughly ashamed of himself, and Jake has to wonder what the difference is between then and now - other than that Evan had been stabbed the first time, obviously, which admittedly might very well make a difference to his state of mind.

Maybe that’s what it is, though. Maybe, underneath it all, Evan’s kneejerk reaction _is_ still to think of them as thieves and vultures, because that’s what he believed when he was taken and brought here, and what he must have spent years upon years believing, unchallenged, until Philip came along to pull him up on it. But he knows that he was wrong, now, knows that that kneejerk reaction is wrong, and he’s trying, still trying, to change. Indeed, he’s nervous, just as Philip said he was the first time, as he tries to build himself up to admitting to Jake and Max, out loud, exactly what he did, and Philip, bless his soul, is sat there with a hand on his arm, still trying to encourage him.

“So, to that end, I, uh.” He can’t bring himself to look at anyone. “I took ‘em all into the mine, the lot of ‘em, got everyone together…”

“What did you do?” Again, Max already sounds like he knows what Evan did, and he doesn’t like it. “Evan, what did you do?”

“I…” Evan swallows, and gives a subdued huff. “... I set off an explosion,” he admits, eventually. “It caused a cave-in. The whole mine collapsed on top of ‘em. Accidents happen in mines all the time,” he says, quietly. “Anyone would’ve believed it was just misfortune that did it. I’d’ve had no trouble gettin’ away with it, only… only _him upstairs_ took notice, didn’t he.”

“... They only wanted you to be fair,” mumbles Max.

“I know, Max. I know. You’re right. And Philip was right when I told him about this, and he said I should’ve talked to ‘em.” Philip squeezes Evan’s arm as he says it. “Because I should’ve done, and that’s what my dad would’ve said, too. If he’d known what was happening, _what I was doing,_ my dad would’ve had my guts in a heartbeat, I can tell you. God, all those people, and dad, too, he still needed me.”

He was very, very ill and very, very weak by then, couldn’t do anything by himself, and Evan was the only person he had left to help him. When the Entity had come calling, it made its intentions quite clear in that it wanted Evan to come along and do its work, but Evan wanted nothing to do with it.

Evan wanted to stay with his father, and he said so, fighting with everything he had to get out of the Entity’s clutches, to _resist,_ but it wasn’t enough, and the pain and torture became more than he could bear in the end.

“... I should’ve fought harder,” he murmurs, and it sounds just as real and full of regret as it did the first time Evan said it, when he was heaving and sobbing and bleeding out all over the grass. “God, he must’ve been so frightened, left there by himself, not knowing where I’d gone or what was happening… And those poor bastards in the mine, too. Christ. What the fuck was I thinking.”

Nobody has anything to say to that. Even Max is turning away, deeply discomfited for what he’s heard, leaving Evan to dwell on his guilt for a while longer.

“Look,” Evan says, after a lengthy silence, “I know that what I did back then was awful. I do. I knew that it was awful when I did it, for god’s sake, and well enough that I used to think this place was hell and that I’d been brought here to suffer for my sins. And I know that I’m never going to be forgiven for what I did, I wouldn’t _want_ to be. Nobody who does what I did deserves any forgiveness for it. But… I want to be better than I was. It won’t make up for what I did, but…”

“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try,” supplies Jake. “Right?”

“Yes.” Evan nods. “Exactly. And I do want to try, I really do. I wanna be the man my dad would have wanted me to be. Even if it’s too little and too late, I don’t care. And him upstairs, he can do what he likes to me, I don’t care about that, either. You lot are my family now, alright? He won’t take you from me, I won’t let him. And I won’t let myself spoil what we’ve got, either.”

“... Evan?”

“Yes, Max?”

“... Would’ja do stuff different now if you could go back ‘n’ try again?”

“Yes, Max. Very differently.”

“Only, if you’d treated those people better, none of it would’a happened, would it.”

“That’s right, Max. It wouldn’t. It was all my own doing, make no mistake. I understand that now.”

“Good. ‘Cause I wouldn’t wanna stick around with you no more if you were still like that.”

“I know, Maxie. And I would deserve it.”

And, all the while Evan is saying this, Jake can’t help but notice Philip looking at him with those same soft eyes he’s seen so many times before. He’s come a long way since that argument he and Philip had, he really has, and it doesn’t seem like a stretch to assume that Philip knows he made the right decision by coming back to him afterwards.

“But you ain’t like that no more, are you, Evan.”

“No, Maxie, I am not. And if I ever say or do anything that leaves you in any doubt at all, I want you to tell me about it, alright?”

“Okay. I will.”

“And we all know that Philip is already very, _very_ good at tellin’ me when I’m makin’ an arse of myself,” Evan goes on, prompting a self-assured nod from Philip, “But Man-Cub, I want you to hold me to account as well, am I understood? Tell me if I’m bein’ a bastard.”

“I will.” Jake nods.

“We _all_ gotta tell each other if we’re bein’ a bastard,” announces Max, firmly, folding his arms. “Nobody’s allowed to spoil it.”

“I agree,” says Evan, nodding. “And we’ll fix our problems together, won’t we. Now, listen,” he goes on, putting one arm around Max and the other around Philip and Jake, “We don’t have any money here, but we don’t need it. We’ve got each other, and we have to see to it that it remains that way, don’t we. Because we’re a family, and that’s what families do.”

“An’ the Man-Cub’s in the family, too!” Max presses him. “Ain’t he, Evan!”

“Of course he is,” Evan readily replies. “Of course.”

But Max isn’t satisfied with that.

“You have to promise!” He almost shouts it at Evan, his brow knotting. “Even if you’re scared or mad, he’s still in the family! You have to promise!”

“I promise! I promise!” With his hands once again raised, Evan is quick to comply with the demand. “No matter what, the Man-Cub is in the family, Max. I promise.”

“Even if him upstairs comes back?”

“Yes, Max. _Especially_ if he comes back. I mean it,” he says, his tone hardening, “When I say that I won’t let him take anyone else from me. _I mean it._ Not you, not Philip, not Lisa, and certainly not the Man-Cub. I’ll not cave to him again, no matter what he does to me. _Never again,_ do you hear me?”

“... What about Sally?”

“... We’ll see how Sally behaves herself, and we’ll decide whether him upstairs can have her or not. Does that sound fair?”

“Haha, okay.”

“So.” Evan straightens his back, and takes a look around at Max, Philip and Jake. “We’re in agreement, then. We stick by each other, no matter what. All of us.”

“Yeah!”

Max cheers, grinning, and Philip, too, gives a sharp, decisive nod. It’s a show of solidarity that Jake had never seen the likes of before coming here, much less that he’s been the centre of, and he quickly blinks away the water that once more threatens to gather in his eyes.

“All for one and one for all,” he declares, beaming. “Right, Evan?”

Even without being able to see Evan’s face, there’s a distinct air of _something_ about him as he turns, slowly, to look at Jake - it’s _recognition,_ Jake realises, and it occurs to him that Evan almost certainly remembers the phrase from the same place he does. It’s another one of those old stories that’s managed to stick around and linger in the world’s consciousness in the years between Evan’s time and Jake’s, and he can hear Evan smiling when he speaks.

“Yes. Yes, exactly.”

He’s reaching for Jake’s hand, then, grasping it in his own and drawing it into the middle of their huddle before catching Max’s wrist with his other to plant his palm firmly on top, and Philip needs no encouragement at all after that to place his hand softly on top of Max’s.

“All for one,” says Evan, stoutly, “And one for all.”

“All for one and one for all!” Jake chimes after him, not even trying to stop the laughter from tumbling out of his mouth along with the words.

That laughter rolls out of him all the moreso when Max, as quick to catch on as ever, eagerly recites the phrase, too.

“All for one an’ one for all!”

And, while it may be true that Philip can’t exactly repeat after them, he gives a hearty chuff, and closes his fingers around Max, Evan and Jake’s hands. He doesn’t need to say anything more.

Christ, Evan’s hand really is big; as often as Jake takes note of things like that, he never really quite gets the measure of him well enough that it stops surprising him, and now, with Evan’s hand closed snugly around his own, it does feel as though something is being evoked in him by it. He’s not wholly certain what it is, exactly, but it’s enough for Jake to know that, more than ever, he wants to stay, to remain here with these people who love him enough that they’re ready to throw down for him like no one else he’s ever known.

Even after he has his hand back, the intoxicating buzz that came with the understanding of just how much he’s loved and cared for here remains, and it’s a cinch to nestle into Philip’s side as he inwardly revels in it. Soon enough, the excitement has died down, and they’ve all settled back into the warm, comfortable security of the shelter; regular conversation returns, and it would be almost as if nothing had happened at all, were it not for that lasting, lingering sensation of easeful camaraderie.

“Very brave of you to have the door closed while you’re in here, Maxie.”

“I think I wanna have it open now.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll get it.”

“Did’ja see the Man-Cub’s paints, Evan?”

“I did! Properly looks the part now, doesn’t he.”

“Yeah! Philip did a good job!”

“Well, he always does, doesn’t he.”

For Jake, talking would take a little more energy than he has, after everything that’s happened, and he finds that it’s much more his pace to simply rest against Philip’s shoulder and be sung to and fussed over. He’s soon turning and kneeling up to put his arms around Philip’s neck and touch their heads together, soliciting him for more of that affection, and Philip freely gives it up, nuzzling him back and kissing him softly on the nose.

Shit, it feels so good to know that he can just _ask_ to be loved on a little more and actually get it. A lot more, in fact. Jake can ask for as much of Philip’s love as he wants, and Philip will always be happy to oblige him, and then some; even without any further prompting, Philip pulls Jake into his lap to better shower him with that love, and, shuffling up and tipping his head back to get himself right under Philip’s chin, Jake is so glad to be there that he could purr.

“Hm.” Drawing back into the shelter after taking a good, long look outside, Evan gives a low grunt. “S’pose I shouldn’t complain.”

“He still don’t want us back?” Max cocks his head at him. “’S been a long time, ain’t it?”

“It has,” says Evan, as he parks himself back down in the hay, “But let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, shall we? I expect he’ll be watchin’ all of us a bit more closely in his trials from now on, best make sure we’re rested and ready to work for when he _does_ want us.”

Max goes quiet, hearing that, and wordlessly glances away. It’s because of him that they’ve all come under scrutiny from him upstairs in the first place, but Evan, wearily hefting himself over to his usual sleeping spot, gives him a pat on the shoulder in passing. What’s done is done, and the best they can do now is try to make the best of what they’ve still got. It wouldn’t make sense to stay angry at each other, and Evan’s small gesture of endearment is enough to reassure Max, to put the smile back on his face, and to set him sufficiently at ease that he can settle in his own little place in the shelter, as ever, near the now open doorway.

And, of course, with everyone else bedding down, Philip wants to do the same, and that means Jake is bedding down with him. There’s no better place to be, Jake reflects, as Philip pulls a sheet over both of them and kisses his hair, and, with a yawn, he once more curls up under Philip’s arm to listen to the sound of his heartbeat.

He’s been there for a while, warm, comfortable and contented, when he realises exactly what Philip, Evan and Max agreed to back there.

They agreed to _fight the Entity_ if it tries to take Jake back from them.

At the time, when they’d said it, when the three of them had collectively sworn on it, Jake had been so high on safety and companionship that it had almost blown right over his head. He’d grasped the concept well enough to be touched and assured by it, but not so well that he’d fully understood it, and now, as he’s left with some room to actually think about it, Jake is _terrified_ for what his friends, his _family,_ have promised to do for him.

They _can’t_ fight the Entity. They can’t. Or, they can, technically they can, but it’s not a fight they can _win._ No matter how much they love Jake or each other, they can’t possibly hope to tangle with the Entity and come out of it on top. All they’re going to get if they try is an eternity of punishment; the Entity is going to see that shredding Evan’s flesh to ribbons wasn’t enough to teach him to behave, wasn’t enough of a deterrent to his fellows, and it’s going to make doubly sure that it drives the message home this time. They’re just going to _suffer,_ and for nothing, too, because they’re fools of the highest calibre if they think the Entity will let Jake stay with them afterwards.

It doesn’t know he’s here yet, but it will. It’s only going to take someone making a mistake or slipping up and it’ll find out about him, and then they’ll all be in for it, and these three, Jake’s friends, Jake’s family, the people who love him and whom he loves, will be in the most incomprehensible danger. Christ, why didn’t he realise it sooner? All this time, they’ve been playing with disaster.

But what can he do? Jake is no more capable of fighting the Entity than Evan, Philip or Max. Even if they collectively decide to refuse to participate in trials - and even if the Entity doesn’t manage to torture them effectively enough to change their minds - him upstairs will only throw them all out, dispose of them, and find itself some new, more cooperative toys. There’s no way around it.

_But there is something you can do, isn’t there._

Jake swallows as he lies there in the dark, and feels his blood run cold.

_You can leave._

_Shut up! Shut up! I’m not leaving! I don’t want to leave!_

_You have to, though. It’s the only way, isn’t it? Him upstairs can’t find you and punish everyone if you aren’t here to be found._

_I don’t want to. I don’t want to leave. I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted here. I don’t want to leave._

_Selfish. You’d let them suffer all of that, just so that you can have a warm place to sleep? Selfish! They’re willing to put themselves on the line for you, aren’t they? You’re awful. You don’t deserve them. You’re so fucking selfish._

It’s true, he _is_ selfish. The solution to this problem is staring him right in the face, and he won’t take it because he’s grown too accustomed to having his hair tousled and being kissed goodnight.

He needs to go. He should never have come here. Evan’s panicked, kneejerk reaction was right, just not for the reasons he thought.

Rolling onto his back, and with Philip’s arm still resting across his chest, Jake stares up at the shelter’s shabby, rust-pocked ceiling, and sighs as quietly as he can, so as not to wake anybody. At any other time, the hushed noise of the others’ breathing around him would be a calming, reassuring thing, but right now, all Jake can think of is how much it’s going to hurt them all if they wake up and find him gone.

Better that than the kind of agony the Entity will inflict on them, though. They’ll recover from losing him in time, and life will go on for them just as it did before he arrived, but whatever him upstairs might do to them will last forever.

Not that he’ll be able to explain it to them, though. And he’d have to, wouldn’t he? He knows he can’t leave by himself. It’s been a long, long time since he’s tried, but back when Jake was still making the odd attempt to leave the clearing and get back to his fellow Survivors - because that’s what he is, still, even after all of this, isn’t it? - he was never able to make it too far before he’d wind up back where he started. The only way he’d be able to leave this place would be if Evan, Philip or Max took him down to the campfire with them, took him into a trial. They’d never agree to it; the mere suggestion alone would break their hearts.

How can he explain to them that he needs to leave?

Turning his head, Jake looks at Philip, fast asleep at his side, for as long as he can bear to. Philip _loves_ him. He’s going to be so distraught if he wakes up alone; Jake can scarcely imagine how frightened and upset he’ll be. But there’s nothing else for it, because Jake loves Philip, too, and the thought of seeing him mangled and maimed and then left to endure his injuries for the rest of his miserable existence in this already awful place is more than he can stand. As much as it hurts to think about it, there’s nothing else for it, and in the end, the guilt becomes too great for him to stay cuddled up to him like he is.

As careful and delicate as he tries to be in lifting Philip’s arm and removing himself from under it, though, Jake can’t avoid disturbing him, and Philip is shortly looking at him with concern.

“It’s okay,” Jake whispers, lying through his teeth even as he smiles. “I’m just a little too warm, that’s all. I’m okay.”

He’s taking his scarf from around his neck as he says it, tossing it aside, and it seems to be enough to convince Philip that nothing is amiss, though even as he settles again, he’s looking for Jake’s hand with his own. Jake finds it for him, laying his hand over Philip’s and holding it gently as he lays back down himself. Hopefully, it’ll be enough to soothe him, and he’ll be asleep again before long.

It takes a while, but eventually Jake can be fairly sure that Philip has dozed off again, and then it’s just himself and his thoughts, trying to solve the puzzle of how he’s going to get away. God, Philip would be crushed if he knew what Jake is planning, and, as Jake’s gaze drifts around the inside of the shelter, those stark white handprints on their wooden plank, hanging on the back wall, almost right over his head, stand out more than ever.

All of this feels like the most supreme betrayal, it really does. They’re a family. But it’s like Maxie said, isn’t it? Jake has a choice about who gets hurt: It can either be Evan, Philip and Max, when the Entity comes down and finds out what they’ve been doing, or it can be Jake, when he goes back over to the other side of the fence, and gets thrown back into the trials again. They’d be willing to face the Entity for his sake, it’s true, but they’d achieve nothing by doing it. The only way, the only real, certain solution, is for Jake to go back where he came from, for things to be the way they were before he arrived.

He’s still wrestling with the guilt, and with the horrible, deepening epiphany that it really _is_ the only way to protect this family he’s found and to pay them back for all the love they’ve shown him, when he hears it, that shrill, wretched screech from somewhere outside the shelter: Sally, passing through on her way to the campfire.

_Sally._ That’s it; the others might not be willing to take Jake to the campfire, but Sally doesn’t care about him nearly so much, won’t give anywhere _near_ as much of a shit about what happens to him or the people who love him. She might just be his ticket out of here, and Jake, sitting up as gingerly as he can and, this time, succeeding in doing so without waking anyone, is struck with jarring force by the realisation that this might be the best chance to make it away from here that he’s likely to get.

Jake looks around, in gross, chilling horror, at his three beloved companions, as it occurs to him that he needs to make this decision _now,_ before Sally leaves, if he’s going to make it at all.

Dear god, he should never have come here.

 

**... TO BE CONCLUDED**


	14. Chapter 13: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **  
> _RIDI, PAGLIACCIO_  
>  **   
>  **  
> _SUL TUO AMORE INFRANTO_  
>  **   
>  **  
> _RIDI DEL DUOL, CHE T’AVVELENA IL COR_  
>  **

_Why are you still sitting there!? You need to leave! You need to leave NOW! Before you miss her!_

But it’s not as simple as that, is it. Fear and guilt sit in the pit of Jake’s chest like a lead weight, all but rooting him to the spot as he grapples with the thought that he won’t even be able to say goodbye to Philip, Evan and Max, that they’re going to wake up and find him gone. But it’s for the best. It’ll hurt them, and badly, but only for a little while. It’s a worthy price to keep them safe and spare them from the Entity’s petty wrath.

He needs to leave.

Jake inwardly counts his blessings for all the times he’s played at sneaking up on his friends while he’s been here with them, moving quickly and quietly to get the jump on them while their backs were turned. If it weren’t for all of those games of hiding and stalking, he might have fallen out of practice after being away from trials for so long, but he’s able to get to his feet and slip out of the shelter silently enough, grabbing his jacket on the way out, that none of his sleeping companions even so much as stir. Once he’s outside, he breaks into a lightfooted run to head Sally off, waving frantically to her as she pauses at the treeline between blinks.

She’s not a friend to him or to anyone, but that’s the point of asking for her help; Jake just has to hope that she’ll be curious enough to come to him when she sees him. Though she does hesitate briefly, no doubt trying to get the measure of the situation, wondering what must be happening to draw Jake out into the clearing alone, sure enough, she approaches him when there doesn’t seem to be any immediate danger, albeit slowly and somewhat cautiously.

However, she’s more than savvy enough to know that something is _wrong._

“What do you want?” Her tone is, thankfully, hushed enough that Jake doesn’t have to tell her to keep it down. “What’s happening?”

“You’ve gotta take me to the campfire,” Jake breathes, already almost panting for how hard his heart is pounding in his chest. “Please, you’ve gotta get me out of here.”

Sally leans away, just a touch, regarding him with doubt, and when she speaks, it’s curtly and with brutally plain suspicion.

“Why?”

He could lie to her. He could tell her that Evan had turned on him, or that he’d done some other awful thing to make him fear for his life, and he knows that Sally would believe him. She’d just love to hear something like that, wouldn’t she? She’d eat it right up, and she’d be delighted, off the back of a story that confirms all of her horrible biases like that, to further spoil things for Evan by stealing Jake away from him. It would be a cinch to convince her to help him escape if she thought it would deal Evan such a cruel blow.

But that wouldn’t be fair, would it, not when she and Evan - and Max and Philip, too - were so close to actually getting along and being somewhat amicable with each other the last time they met. True enough, it would serve Jake’s purpose, but, again, the longer lasting consequences wouldn’t be worth the selfish, short term benefit.

There’s nothing else for it but to tell her the truth. She’ll either help him or she won’t.

“Because him upstairs came a little closer than I’d like to finding me here,” he explains, “And I’m scared that everyone’s gonna be in trouble if I don’t get out of here _right now._ C’mon, you’ve gotta help me. I don’t wanna know what he’ll do to everyone if I give him the excuse. Please, Sally. Just take me to the campfire with you, get me into a trial so I can go back where I came from.”

“... You’d really return to an eternity of suffering and bloodshed just to keep MacMillan and his clan safe, would you?” Sally cocks her head. “How noble.”

“I’m serious!” Jake hisses, in a harsh whisper. “Please! Just take me with you, and you’ll never have to do anything for me again. _Please,_ Sally.”

She lingers, no doubt weighing her options, and takes a dispassionate glance around the clearing.

“... And they’re all asleep in their little shelter, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to be out and away before they wake up, do you?”

“Yes!”

“You don’t want to say goodbye? That seems a little callous of you.”

“They…” Jake shifts uneasily, frowning. “... They wouldn’t understand, Sally. We, we had an argument, me and Evan - e, everything’s fine now,” he hastens to add, “But I know that if I said I needed to leave, I’d never convince them that it wasn’t because of that. I don’t _want_ to leave,” he explains, “But… they’d never believe me. At least like this…”

“... They can believe that you’ve simply been _taken back._ I see.”

“Well… Yeah. It… it doesn’t have to be anybody’s fault like this.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” Another long, uninterested look in the direction of the shelter. “Tell me,” she goes on, conversational even in the face of Jake’s fearful urgency, “What’s brought this on for you, ‘Man-Cub’? You were never worried about being discovered before.”

_Just tell her the truth. You might as well._

“... They said that if him upstairs tried to take me, they’d fight him.”

Now she turns to him, straightening up considerably.

“Oh _really?_ Is that so?”

“Mhm.” Jake nods. “But I mean… they _can’t,_ Sally, they can’t do that. I can’t let them do that. They’ll.. C’mon, please. Just get me out of here, okay?”

“I suppose there’s nothing else for it, is there. Well,” says Sally, “You had probably better wash that paint off, or your friends down at the campfire might sense that something is amiss.”

Shit, the paints, the paints. He has to wash the paints off.

“Shit, shit… Can you…” He looks around, struggling harder and harder against his rising panic. “... Can you be my lookout while I wash my face?”

“Alright. But be quick about it. The Master is expecting me.”

“I will, I will! Thank you!”

He doesn’t have to get _all_ of the paint off, Jake reminds himself, as he hurries to open one of the group’s plastic drums and gather some water into his cupped hands. He just has to remove enough of it that it doesn’t look like paint anymore. It’s easier said than done, however, and by the time his face is starting to feel clean, his skin is raw and painful for his having resorted to scrubbing his face with his jacket to make some progress in a timely manner - but even though his face is soon burning for his efforts, it’s far from being the thing that hurts most about washing off Philip’s lovingly-given paints.

However, if there’s trials to be had, Evan, Philip and Max will be awake before much longer; he can’t afford to dawdle. Even as he realises that he’s left his scarf in the shelter, Jake doesn’t slow down. There’s no time to go back for it now, and even if there was, it wouldn’t be worth the risk of waking everyone up to go and get it. He’ll just have to live without it, and he does his best to cast it from his mind as he pushes the gathering water on the ground into the grass with his foot to hide any trace of what he’s had to do.

“Come along. That’s good enough.” Sally is being more helpful than he’d expected. “If you’re coming, let’s hurry.”

“Okay.”

Taking one last look at the shelter, Jake swallows hard.

_God. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to. I’m so sorry._

“Come along. Hurry.”

Sally doesn’t give him time to dwell, though Jake is still watching the shelter even as she takes his wrist in her hand and leads him away, into the woods. Once they’re beyond the treeline, he at least manages to face the direction they’re travelling, but he can only look down at his feet, and allow himself to be lead. It’s true that nothing could make him willingly give up what he has - what he _had_ \- with Philip, Max and Evan, but circumstances have forced his hand. He has no other choice.

“Wait.”

When Sally suddenly stops, and pulls him to a halt with her, however, Jake’s head snaps up, and he stares at her.

“Wh, what? What is it? Is someone here?”

“No.” She pauses, just briefly, then turns. “Go back. Don’t do this. Go back.”

“What?” His eyes go wide. “What are you talking about?”

“The treeline is still there, boy!” Sally points back the way they came. “Go back while you still can! Don’t do this!”

“I have to! Sally, _please!_ There’s no other way!”

“There must be! Think! Do you have any idea what you’ll be causing if you leave!?”

“Look, I know it’s gonna hurt them, but -”

“‘Hurt’ isn’t the word for what it’s going to do when they wake up and find you vanished!” she snaps, still making a surprisingly admirable effort to keep her voice down. “You’re going to ruin them!”

“Not as badly as him upstairs is gonna ruin them when they try to pick a fight with him!” Jake retorts. “Maybe you don’t know, maybe he _likes_ you, maybe you’re his favourite pet or something, but if they try to turn on him, he’s gonna tear them to shreds, and it’s gonna _last,_ okay!? I’m not gonna let them… _get themselves tortured_ and wind up walking around broken for the rest of their fucking lives!”

“Only if he finds you! Listen to me,” she rasps, grabbing him by both shoulders, “When they wake up and see that you are not there, that you have been taken away from them, they are going to be frightened and wounded beyond your wildest imagination. It will be as if the earth has been pulled out from under their feet. As if the world ended while they were asleep.”

She pulls him closer, so close that Jake can smell the blood on her clothes, on the bag that covers her face.

“They will not understand, and it will be agony of the worst kind to try. They will see reminders of you everywhere they look, and your absence will cut them to the core, every time. There will be no escape or respite from the feeling of having been _cheated,_ of having been _robbed,_ but there will be no salve for the pain it causes, and, much like any wound the Master may inflict upon them, that pain may grow less intense with time, but it will never, _ever_ leave them. Would you really bring that suffering upon them, ‘Man-Cub’? On these people who love and cherish you? When you have a choice?”

“I _don’t_ have a choice!” He barely manages not to shout as he forcefully breaks her grasp on him and backs away. “This is how it has to be! Life goes on, damn it! They’ll get over it! Things’ll just go back to how they were before I came, that’s all! Nobody’s gonna kick up that kind of melodramatic horseshit over me!”

In an instant, though, she’s closed the distance and is catching him again, this time by the arm.

“Have you not paid attention to _anything_ they’ve done while you’ve been there!?” she seethes. “Are you _blind!?_ Are you a fool!? Do you really believe that they would simply _move on_ from losing someone like you!? That’s not how _losing someone_ works! You don’t understand anything!”

Even as furious as she sounds, it’s not Sally’s usual bitter, venom-for-venom’s-sake vitriol that he’s hearing, Jake realises, and he holds her gaze for a few moments as he tries to catch his breath, to clear his head.

“... But _you_ understand it,” he says, finally. “Don’t you.”

“Listen to me.” At last, she loosens her vicelike grip on Jake’s arm. “I may not care for Evan MacMillan and his ilk, but I would not wish that kind of suffering on _anyone._ Losing you like this may not kill them,” Sally tells him, gravely. “But believe me when I say that one does not have to _die_ to lose their life. Go back,” she says, again. “Go back to that clearing, get back inside that shelter, and _be there_ when they wake up.”

“... I can’t,” Jake murmurs, feeling his eyes beginning to burn. “He _is_ gonna find me eventually, Sally. He is. All it’s gonna take is one fuck up and everything’s gonna go to hell - do you think Evan looks like that because he wants to!? Fuckin’... walking around full of holes and with a back full of junk metal!? That’s gonna be _all_ of them when him upstairs gets through with them, maybe worse! And it’s not like he’ll let me stay with them after he’s done, even! It’ll be for nothing!”

“... The Master did that to him?”

“Yes! Because Evan tried to argue with him _one fucking time!_ That’s gonna be _all_ of them when he finds me here! They’ll be fucked forever! For nothing! At least if I just _leave,_ they only have to deal with losing me, instead of losing me _and_ getting fucking tortured!”

“... I see. And you’re willing to go back into the trials and be tortured in their stead, are you?”

“Yes!”

She takes some time to consider this, and eventually gives a yielding nod.

“Very well, then. But…” Her hand drifts towards the level of her chin, a thought occurring to her. “... Perhaps there _is_ a way.”

“What?” It’s Jake, now, closing the distance between them. “What is it? Tell me!”

“Well.” Slowly, Sally folds her arms. “There would be no issue, would there, if you were here… _legally,_ so to speak.”

“What? Y, you -” He stammers as the penny drops. “- You mean, do the work? Me?”

“Yes. If that’s a price you’re willing to pay to remain here, of course.”

“Is that… can that happen?”

“You’d be surprised at how accommodating the Master can be if you’re willing to bargain. I’m sure he’d be willing to consider it if you asked with respect.”

“I…”

Christ, he’d never even _thought_ of that.

“... I…”

It’s definitely a solution, it’s most certainly a legitimate solution, but… as much as his fellow Survivors used to annoy and antagonise him - and each other - can he really say that he’d be willing to _kill_ them? Over and over again? To earn the right to stay with his family?

It’s more tempting than he’s willing to admit.

“... Let’s just go. C’mon.”

“Alright. Food for thought, though, hm?”

“I said, let’s go.”

“Alright.”

They make the rest of the journey in silence, but the space inside Jake’s head is anything but quiet.

_It wouldn’t even be changing anything for them, you know. Getting mauled to death in trials is just their day in, day out routine anyway. You know what it’s like._

_No. Shut up._

_It’s just your own guilt that you’re struggling with, though, isn’t it? You know it happens, you just don’t want to be the one to do it._

_Shut up. Shut the fuck up._

_You’ll adjust to it. You will. They all have. If Philip can learn to live with it, so can you. Philip’s not a bad person, is he?_

_No, of course he isn- Wait, don’t start using the fucking future tense like that! I didn’t say I’d do it!_

_Alright, but Philip’s not a bad person, and neither is Maxie, or Evan, really. They just don’t have a choice about the work they do._

_But I do! I have a choice!_

_Is it a choice, though? Is it? Really? Just think of how happy they’ll be to have you back, knowing that they won’t have to hide you! You’d be able to help them so much more if they could share their burden of the work with you, and, I mean-_

_Shut up! Shut up, shut up! I can’t believe I’m even thinking about this!_

_-Between how happy they’ll be and the fact that nothing would change for anyone over on the other side, the net suffering in this place would be less. Just sayin’._

_Shut up._

_Am I wrong?_

_Shut up!_

_Am I wrong, though?_

_… I’ll think about it._

_Yeah, I bet you will._

Before he can ruminate on the issue any further, however, Jake’s internal bickering is interrupted by that same intrusive, jarring sensation of permeating pressure in the air, and a moment later, Sally is addressing him.

“Look alive, boy. We’ll be there soon.”

“Alright.”

“I’m going to tell the Master that I found you wandering and that I’ve brought you to the fire so that you can go back to where you belong.”

“And he’ll believe that?”

“He’s stupid. He’ll believe anything.”

“Have you lied to him before?”

“Of course, we all have. You should learn to do the same, it’ll serve you well.”

“... Are you serious? Is this a joke?”

“No. You’ve hidden from him all this time, haven’t you?”

“I guess so.”

“Listen.” Once more, Sally’s voice drops to a raspy hush. “He wants you to believe that he knows and sees everything, but I can promise you that he doesn’t. I have been here for a long time - a _long_ time - and I can assure you that he is only capable of seeing slightly more than you or I, and that he knows considerably _less._ Given that you are, in fact, standing here in one piece before me,” she says, “It is safe to assume that he has not known where you’ve been, and if I tell him that I found you lost in the woods, he will have little choice but to believe me.”

“... Okay.”

“I will give you one piece of advice in parting,” Sally tells him, leaning in. “Learn the Master’s limits. Do this, and your life here will become _vastly_ more tolerable. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” Jake nods. “I get it.”

“Good. Come, then.”

She extends her open hand, and, with the realisation dawning upon him that this really will be the point of no return if he takes it and goes with her to the campfire, Jake hesitates. Has she been telling the truth? Or is Sally merely hoping to throw him to the Entity to take the credit for returning him to its clutches? In any case, if he sets foot out there, there really will be no going back to the warm, loving comfort of his found family. It’ll all be over.

But this is the way it has to be, isn’t it. It was naive to think it could last forever.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself - and with one last glance over his shoulder, though the clearing, the shelter, and Philip, Max and Evan are well out of sight now - Jake straightens his back, squares his shoulders, and there, in the last of the cover provided by the woods before the nearby glow of the campfire begins to encroach on its concealing shadows, takes Sally’s offered hand.

It’s been so long, so, so long, since Jake last saw the campfire, but now, stepping out into its light, he can’t help but feel that he’s making a mistake. It’s too late to change his mind now, though, and all Jake can do is look around, try to take the place in.

It’s the same campfire that he remembers sitting around with his fellow Survivors, in the same clearing - it’s literally the exact same place, down to every last detail - but they aren’t here, and it occurs to Jake that, actually, no, it’s not the same place. It’s a _copy,_ another version of the campfire, a mirror of it, on the other side of the fence. And, although the other Survivors aren’t here, there is _someone_ waiting by the fire. He and Sally are not alone.

“Myers.” Sally addresses him with professionally-veiled contempt. “It’s just you and I again, I see.”

Jake only catches sight of him when he follows Sally’s gaze; that he’s standing so still, on the other side of the fire where the flickering light, flying embers and heat haze can break up his silhouette, made him surprisingly difficult to spot, but now that Jake can see him, he steels himself, doing his best to hold his nerve.

“If you know what’s good for you,” remarks Sally, levelly, “You’ll stay over there. I have brought him for the Master, not for you.”

It seems that Myers does have some degree of good sense, because as much as he’s staring at Jake, he does stay exactly where he is, as motionless as stone - until that pressure in the air intensifies into an ungodly ringing in all of their ears, when Myers, along with Jake and Sally both, finally lifts his gaze to see the sky twisting and churning over their heads.

The Entity does not, thank goodness, think to make a full appearance this time, but it is here, undoubtedly, and Jake feels Sally’s grasp on his hand tighten as its terrible voice resonates from all around them, loudly enough to shake leaves from the trees, the campfire’s flames shuddering and flickering with every terrible vibration.

Yet, when she speaks, Sally appears unmoved.

“Yes,” she replies, only raising her voice as much as one would if they were speaking to someone a room away. “I have found your lost one, in the woods, and I have brought him back for you. He will return to your trials, now. Does this please you?”

Instead of the grating, groaning cacophony that erupted out of the Entity’s hellish mass back at the clearing, this time, its response is mercifully more sedate, but the impossibly deep, booming rumble that it gives instead is still every bit as ear-splitting and awful. Jake can’t hope to understand. Sally, meanwhile, is wholly conversant, and her unconcerned tone suggests that her Master is, indeed, pleased.

“Very good. Then I shall take him into the trial with me,” she says, “And he will resume his service to you, yes?”

Christ, it’s really happening, isn’t it. It’s not sinking in fast enough, it doesn’t feel real enough. He’s going to be in a trial, the first one he’s had to face in an age, and Jake knows that he ought to be ready, that he _needs_ to be ready, but it still feels like the severity of the situation hasn’t caught up to him yet. Standing there next to Sally, he tries, with all his might, to remember what trials are like, what works, what doesn’t, how to survive, but it’s all such a distant and indistinct haze at this point that it feels like a stone in the pit of his stomach.

As Sally nods, with all the pleasantry and and poise of someone who’s been performing her role, playing her part, for multiple lifetimes, she thanks the Entity for its _gracious mercy_ and praises it for its unquestionable wisdom. Just by hearing that, and summarily seeing the enormous fucker fade back into blessed obscurity, satisfied, Jake thinks he might be getting some pretty shrewd ideas about what she meant when she told him to learn its limits, to lie to it, to take what he can get from it.

Honeyed words and plenty of butter; that’s all one really needs to handle the Entity, apparently. Stupid, just as Sally said. Stupid, and _vain._

And suddenly, just like that, the Nightmare smears and shifts around them, and then they’re _somewhere else,_ at the edge of another clearing, and it’s here, in this place that he’s seen so many times before from a different perspective, that he sees them, for the first time in so, so long: Dwight, Claudette, and Nea, gathered by the Entity in preparation for a new trial, anxiously huddling together and grossly unaware that Sally - that is, the Nurse - is watching them from barely thirty feet away. In this strange intersecting of the Nightmare’s two disparate halves, it’s like looking through two-way glass, and Jake can only stare as the revelation strikes him that he and his fellow Survivors were never as alone here as they’ve always been lead to believe.

But there’s only three of them.

“You’ll be the fourth.” Sally must have seen him looking. “Surely, you must realise that I won’t be able to simply let you go.”

“I know. I wouldn’t expect you to.” Jake, unable to look away from his former, and now soon to be once-again allies, speaks quietly, as if they might be able to hear him. “You still have to do the work, don’t you.”

“Yes.”

“... Thanks for helping me.”

“Think nothing of it. I would have preferred to see you go back, but… I suppose some things can’t be avoided.”

“No. No, they can’t.”

“You know, I ought to be thanking you, as well.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. Were it not for you, I would never have been treated to the… _truly remarkable_ sight of Evan MacMillan sitting there amongst you all at the back of your little shelter like a broody mother hen.”

Jake frowns.

“Come on, don’t make fun of him. He took good care of me, man. He takes good care of everyone.”

“I assure you, ‘Man-Cub’, I am not.” Sally, though, just chuckles. “Tell me, have you ever kept chickens?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Well.” Her voice is the least caustic he’s ever heard it. “Believe me, they are very much _like that,_ and I will cherish that vision until the end of my days.”

“Heh. Okay.”

“Do consider what I said, however,” she adds. “I am quite certain that the Master will allow you to return, if you… request a change of duties.”

“Uh.” He blanches. “Yeah, I’ll… I’ll think about it.”

“Good. Now, be ready. This is it.”

“Alright.” He looks up at her. “... I guess I’ll see you around.”

“You assuredly will.” She does not look back at him. “Take care, won’t you.”

“You too.”

And just like that, the Nightmare melts into a blur once again, and a heartbeat later, Jake finds himself amidst crumbling walls, scrubby patches of tall grass and impossibly tall trees, all choked by a thick, ever-present fog that rolls and swirls in heavy swathes, close to the ground.

He swallows. It’s been so long, and yet, in an instant, it’s as if he never left.

_Find a generator. Get to work. Don’t run, not yet. Not until you know where she is. Stay hidden._

Knowing that it’s Sally - that is, the Nurse - from the start is an undeniable advantage. Jake knows, for example, that if he senses her nearby _at all,_ it means that she could be on him in an instant, from any direction, if he gives himself away. With that in mind, he makes his way, slowly but stealthily, through the mist and the underbrush until he spots a generator’s barely-flickering lights, and heads for them.

She’ll be patrolling the generators. It’s the easiest way to find someone at the start of a trial by far, and Jake glances warily over his shoulder as he drops to one knee next to the generator he's found and shoves his hands into it when he still sees no sign of her.

Jake is not a mechanic. He never was. To his knowledge, none of his fellow Survivors are particularly technically skilled. But it doesn’t matter, because the Entity isn’t a mechanic either, and the generators are only as complex as the Entity can make them. One really can just sit there and tinker with the thing for a while and look like he’s doing something constructive, with the _intention_ of fixing it, and the generator will, bit by bit, little by little, oblige him, and start working.

It’s all so fucking stupid, isn’t it? The generators aren’t even connected to anything; there’s no reason that fixing enough of them would make the exit gates work. This place really is just the Entity’s stupid, stupid dream, where things only work because the Entity thinks they should - and the Entity is a fucking _idiot._ That you can even fuck it up at all is the height of idiocy; there’s nothing _to_ fuck up, and yet, if you aren’t paying the generator enough attention, it’ll blow up in your face to punish you.

Christ. Getting maimed and killed repeatedly for all eternity might not even be the worst agony of being here.

Some subtle movement in Jake’s peripheral vision startles him, but it turns out to be Claudette, joining him at the generator. When she realises exactly who she’s looking at, though, her eyes widen with shock, and Jake sees her silently mouth his name in disbelief.

He can’t drum up the nerve to hold that eye contact with her for long, though, and quickly makes a point of busying himself with the generator.

Somewhere in the distance, the Nurse shrieks, once, then twice, then again, once, then twice. She must be chasing someone, and as the generator rattles and pops and finally chugs to life between them, Jake and Claudette wordlessly agree that they’re safe enough in moving together to find the next one.

They know all about it when the Nurse catches her quarry some moments later. Nea’s yelp of pain echoes through the trees, but they can’t afford to be concerned about her. It’s just _information,_ that’s all, a confirmation that the Killer is still occupied, and if Nea can just keep her busy for a little longer, the two of them can get another generator running. Jake knows he can trust Nea with the task. She’s an escape artist if ever there was one.

It’s too soon when they hear her get struck a second time and go down, and, after sharing a brief glance with Claudette, Jake ducks away from the generator with the intention of following the Nurse to whatever hook she decides to hang Nea from so that he can _unhook_ her as soon as there’s space to do so safely.

Fucking hell, it’s as if he never went away. Now that he’s here, back in amongst it, it’s like second nature to him. This trauma is going to take more than a short stretch of being loved and cared for to do away with, evidently, but he supposes he ought to be thankful for it, given the way it’s all panned out, which is to say, horribly. He’d be up shit creek about now if he’d really forgotten it all.

And so would Nea, for that matter.

Having seen the Nurse blink away and heard her travel far enough that he’s satisfied she won’t be able to get back in time to do anything about him, Jake darts out from behind the tree he’s been huddled behind to come to Nea’s aid, and she, too, stares for a moment as he lifts her down, but knows better than to dwell on her surprise. She’s about to bolt, knowing that the Nurse will be on her way back, but then that second generator lights up some way away, making enough noise to grab the attention of everybody in the vicinity.

The temptation is to wait and see where the Nurse will decide to go, who she’ll decide to chase, but Nea is injured, and Claudette isn’t. Nea is the softer target by far, and with that in mind, Jake points to a far corner and beckons Nea to follow him there at a sprint.

The Nurse doesn’t come. Instead, they hear her heading for the generator, and as he and Nea stop and slip into some well-hidden spot, Jake gets the distinct hunch that Sally might be lending him a hand after all, though a small one it may be. He’ll take what he can get; though the rules in this place may be nonsensical and arbitrary, it feels as if he needs to escape with his fellows if he’s going to wind up on the right side of the fence when this trial is over.

As far as the Entity’s knowledge is concerned, Jake can forgive that it doesn’t have enough of a grasp on things like machines and their inner workings to make the generators in its trials particularly complex or even slightly realistic, but it really ought to know better when it comes to living human bodies, surely. And yet, all one needs to do to heal someone’s injuries in a trial is put his hands on them with the intention of patching them up, and, just like fixing a generator, it just _works,_ for some reason. Not that he’s complaining, mind you. It’s very convenient, and maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s not so much a gap in the Entity’s knowledge but simple _laziness_ that prevents it from complicating the issue any further than this.

That seems a likely explanation, really. There are no germs in the Nightmare, either, or else Evan’s eternally-open wounds would be incurably infected and he’d never be fit enough to achieve anything. That, and it would require the Entity to actually _think_ about how things like bacteria and viruses would function, to inject them into the world to be experienced by its pets. It’s far too much work for the likes of him upstairs.

Then again, people have only known about bacteria and viruses for a couple of hundred years, haven’t they? Maybe the Entity really _doesn’t_ know.

_You’re getting distracted. Focus, damn it._

Soon enough, Nea is miraculously recovered from her injuries, and she’s vanishing into the mist to find a third generator, leaving Jake alone. Where’s the Nurse? She didn’t catch Claudette, so she must be roaming by now. Indeed, Jake finds that he can sense her presence much more clearly as he heads for the tumbledown building near the centre of the penned-in trial area, but she’s not _that_ closeby, and he knows that she has no reason to come here looking for him. It’s only when he’s actually _inside_ the building that Jake is given any pause, however, when he realises where he is.

The tracks in the dirt leading down into a deep underground pit - which now terminates in a basement, because the Entity has to put it _somewhere,_ regardless of how much sense it may or may not make - give the hole away, and Jake finally, after being here for so long and seeing it so many times, recognises it for what it is.

It’s a mineshaft. And not just any mineshaft, but _the_ mineshaft.

Knowing exactly what it is and why it’s here gives the place a very different atmosphere than the one it had before Jake wandered into the woods and got lost. He can scarcely imagine how the place must be for Evan, who keenly regrets everything that the mineshaft represents and has to relive it every time the Entity shunts him into a trial here.

But he’s not “Evan” anymore, is he. He can’t be, or Jake’s going to get himself into difficulty.

Whatever this place was in reality, however, here, in the Nightmare, in the trial, it’s a basement, and there are _prizes_ in basements. When he hears another generator fire up outside, Jake takes the opportunity to run into the pit and down the stairs to find the box that is always, _always_ there, every time, and he’s still digging through it when the Nurse’s next series of blinks brings her dangerously close to him. She’s hot on somebody’s heels - Dwight’s heels, specifically, judging by the distinctly panicked and ungainly footfalls overhead - and Jake, weighing the risks, decides to keep digging. She’s distracted, and it wouldn’t be wise to try to leave while she’s clearly right on top of him.

These boxes are always half filled with trash, every time. But there’s something good hidden in amongst it somewhere, and Jake discovers its concealed bounty, a flashlight, just as the Nurse manages to tag Dwight as he’s halfway through a window.

Dwight is not as good at running as Nea, and he is not as good at hiding as Claudette. He _is_ going to get caught, and when he does, the Nurse is going to bring him down here. Jake, thinking ahead, treads as quietly and carefully as he can across the basement and ducks into a locker, to wait for the inevitable.

Another generator pops somewhere outside. Nea and Claudette are making good on the time they’re being afforded, and with a bit of luck, it’ll incentivise the Nurse to fuck off and find them instead of hanging around near the basement. That said, Jake thinks, as he leans against the back wall of the locker, if they get too eager and get a fifth running, the Nurse might decide that her best course of action is to secure the one kill she has instead of trying to chase everyone when the exit gates will be open at any moment.

Nea and Claudette are sensible, he reflects, doing his best to steady himself and keep his nerve as Dwight, on cue, gets himself hit again, and the Nurse closes in to collect her quarry. They’ll wait, they’ll be strategic. They’re smart.

The Nurse’s aura is unsettling in a trial in a way that it wasn’t when Jake was talking to her outside of it, just a little while ago, and now, as she enters the basement, it’s becoming tremendously distressing. Even without making sound, it _feels_ loud, enough so to set Jake’s heart pounding, like a toned down version of the Entity’s own horrible presence.

Shit, that _is_ what it is. It’s not the Killers themselves but the _Entity’s_ presence that Jake and his fellow Survivors can sense, hanging over their tormentors like a fetid pall. That’s why it’s not always the same, why it can change and be adjusted, sometimes even right there in the middle of a trial. Christ, that fucker really is behind everything in this place, isn’t he?

Well. Everything that he knows about. It’s tempting - Dwight’s screaming as that hook pierces his shoulder barely registers enough to interrupt Jake’s train of thought - to assume, from everything that one can see in the Nightmare, that the Entity really _is_ as all-powerful as it wants them all to believe, but it’s just like Sally said, isn’t it? That it’s only the _illusion_ of being all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing. All the Entity _really_ is, at the end of the day, or the end of the night, rather, is _more powerful than its pets._ Jake just needs to figure out where the real limits of its powers lie, and he’ll be well away to improving his godforsaken life here.

Good, she’s leaving. She’ll be hustling now that the generators are almost all done, and sure enough, by the time Jake has stepped out of the locker, he can hear her tangling with Nea again. Oh, _and_ Claudette. They’re making things difficult for her, it sounds like, and Jake wonders, as he reaches for Dwight and hefts him off the hook, if it’s going to work in his favour or not. They’re both wounded now, so it seems unlikely that the Nurse will leave them in a hurry, and with that thought in mind, Jake grabs the back of Dwight’s shirt collar as he goes to bolt. They have time to patch him up. They do.

Only barely, however. Once both of the girls are on the ground, the Nurse only takes the time to hook one of them before making a beeline for the basement.

Everything that happens in the next handful of moments is a blur of terrified reflexes as the Nurse comes straight through the basement ceiling to appear barely six feet away from them and is immediately blinded by Jake’s flashlight as he stands up and shines it at her face, and it’s enough that both he and Dwight are able to dodge her swing, Dwight wasting no time at all in scrambling around both Jake and the Nurse and barreling up the stairs and out of the basement. It’s only a moment later that Jake follows him, making the most of the opportunity presented by the Nurse’s temporary fatigue.

Crouching at the top of the stairs, Jake listens out for the sound of another blink charging, and the instant he hears the Nurse shift, he ducks back down into the basement, hoping to fool her into thinking he’s making a hasty getaway with Dwight. And it would have worked, too, except that she finds Dwight almost immediately, and soon has him caught again.

Well, Dwight’s just going to have to stick it out in the basement for a while, isn’t he. Claudette needs rescuing first, and Nea is still bleeding out in the scrub somewhere. Now that the Nurse literally has her hands full, Jake dispenses with any semblance of stealth and makes a flagrant break towards his other allies, confident that she won’t be looking for him.

Picking Nea up is mercifully quick and easy; she’s been wise enough to rest and recover while Jake’s been busy trying to see to Dwight (which, seeing where Dwight is now, seems like it might have been a waste of time). A few heartbeats later, they’re both fetching Claudette down from the hook she’s been left on, and then the three of them are working together to patch each other up.

Teamwork is a brilliant thing, when it happens, and by the time the Nurse is coming for them, they’re scattering like mice, and she can’t hope to catch them all.

That last generator needs to get done, and Jake, sensing that he’s well away from danger, finds one in a sheltered corner, already limping along as it turns over. It seems like Nea and Claudette started on this one earlier, and although there’s a chance that the Nurse will come back to it, knowing that it’s been tampered with before, the threat of her is sufficiently distant that Jake is content to settle into it and finish the job.

Nea and Claudette are trying to get to Dwight. They’re over in that direction, if the racket the Nurse is making with her blinks is any indication, and it shortly becomes apparent that Nea is running interference - and getting struck in the process - while Claudette goes for the rescue.

Is this a good time to fix the last generator? Is it? It’s hard to tell. It has to get done eventually, doesn’t it? Maybe if Jake can get it done and get the gates open just in time for Claudette getting Dwight out of the basement, they can all escape together. Yeah, yeah. That seems pretty solid.

Dwight just has to _not get caught._ A lot to ask, perhaps, but it’s the best chance they’ve got. No sooner has the generator lit up, prompting the exit gates’ alarms to sound, Jake is sprinting for the nearest one, and all but yanks the handle off its throw switch for how hard and fast he pulls it down, looking anxiously over his shoulder all the while. The Nurse will want to come to the gates to find him soon, to put a stop to him before he can provide his fellows with an escape route, but there’s three of them running around near the basement now and she can’t very well just _leave_ them or they’ll all be healed and making an enormous annoyance of themselves in no time at all.

Even as the gate’s deafening klaxon blares in Jake’s ears and sets his teeth on edge, she still doesn’t come. She does, however, succeed in catching Dwight for a third time, no doubt having pegged him as the team’s weak link, and despite Nea and Claudette’s best efforts, she has little difficulty taking him back down to the basement.

The Entity, its countless claws already extended as it materialises in a swarm of embers, reaching down, so huge that Jake can see it plainly even from the gate, eagerly receives the spoils of its servant’s hard work.

And Dwight won’t be the only one, either: Nea, too, is swiftly caught as she and Claudette attempt to beat a retreat, but now that the gate is opening, there’s no way that Claudette or Jake will be able to get around the Nurse to save her. She’ll definitely be lingering near the hook until they leave, and frankly, she would be stupid not to do it.

Claudette arrives at the gate and meets Jake with a regretful look before they make their escape together, fleeing into the murky woods beyond.

*  *  *

The Nurse - that is, Sally - watches the pair leave. Trials have long since ceased to be entertaining, and she struggles to find any pleasure in them, but she can’t say that she dreads their coming. Not in the way she’s dreading having to go back to Evan and his little clan and feed them some merciful white lie about where their Man-Cub has gone.

They’re most certainly already looking for him by now, and she’s going to have to come up with some way to explain it that will make them understand, to drive home that they aren’t going to be getting him back, without incriminating herself, the Man-Cub, or anyone else for it. It would be very easy to tell them some twisted version of the truth, to say that he _ran away from them,_ and Sally reflects, as she’s released from the trial and returned to the campfire, that some terrible shadow of her worst, most wicked self would _love_ to tell them that, to hurt them for the sake of hurting them.

But that wouldn’t be fair to them, would it. Not when she knows so well what it would be doing to them. The boy isn’t dead - at least, not forever - but he might as well be, for their chances of seeing him again without having to kill him themselves. If he’d simply _died_ and gone away forever, in fact, it would be less awful than this. It would be beyond reprehensible to make it any worse than it already is.

Strange, she thinks, idly watching the fire surge and wane some little way before her, that she should be acting out her own story for a second time, only from a different perspective, and she has to wonder if Andrew’s foreman felt the same when he was left with the task of delivering the bad news, all those years ago.

It is a small blessing that the Master seems satisfied with the work she’s done, and gives Sally her leave to go with the conclusion of that one trial. Having had his long lost toy returned is enough to please him, it would appear, and Sally is wiser than to look a gift horse in the mouth. She needs to get back to the clearing to get this wretched business over with, and, to that end, she silently makes her way back into the woods. Myers watches her leave, but she can’t pretend to care for him at the best of times, and she certainly hasn’t the energy to deal with him now.

What on Earth is she going to tell them? MacMillan, Ojomo and… whatever that oafish manchild’s name is, they’re going to be destroyed by _any_ explanation Sally offers, and if she gives even the slightest suggestion that someone might be to blame for it, there’ll be a blood feud waged against them until the end of time.

But there _is_ someone she can blame, isn’t there. The Master; Evan and his lot will seize upon another reason to hate their blunderous overseer, won’t they? With that in mind, perhaps it would be best to keep things vague. After all, lies become harder to hold up the more complex they become, and the more of the blanks she can leave the three to fill in for themselves, the better. Indeed, if she’s sufficiently economical with what she chooses to share, she may not have to lie to them at all, technically speaking.

 _The Master has taken your Man-Cub back._ That’s all she needs to say, surely. It’s not untrue, and the only implied blame lies with the Master himself. She can tell them that, leave them, and wash her hands of the whole miserable business. Good. Perfect.

… They _were_ happy with him, though. That they had managed to achieve some small part of something that Sally herself had always wanted when she’d been alive - and that she had been cruelly denied - left her with some troublesome conflicting feelings, and she has to admit that there were times when her envy grew so deep and dire that she could barely stand it, but…

… But she couldn’t bear to see it taken from them. Having had that little slice of paradise stolen from her, in a bizarre twist, simultaneously became an argument both for _and_ against ruining it for Evan and the others. In the end, all Sally had been able to bring herself to do was _look._

And they aren’t a bad lot, not really. They don’t deserve this. Nobody deserves this.

Sally hears the chaos unfolding in the clearing long before she gets there, and isn’t the least bit surprised by it. Evan and Max are rowing with each other, though too distantly to make out exactly what they’re saying, their raised, frantic voices punctuated on occasion by the sound of Philip’s plaintive calling. That must be why their argument has been able to escalate to such a fever pitch; Philip is usually there to prevent such escalations from taking place, but he’s distracted with searching for their missing loved one.

It’s a type of chaos she’s far too familiar with, and it is equally unsurprising to discover the underlying cause of the argument when she comes near enough to hear it in full.

“You shouldn’t’a yelled at him! He’s run away ‘cuz you yelled at him ‘n’ scared him!”

“For fucks sake, I didn’t mean it! I said I was sorry! What else could I have done!?”

“You could’a not yelled at him! This is all your fault! You made him think we didn’t want him!”

“My fault!? If you’d’ve pulled your _fucking_ weight -”

“Ahem.” Sally draws herself up as she enters the clearing. “Excuse me.”

“This had better be fucking good, Sally.” Immediately, Evan is turning his rage on her, growling and bristling, all tense, squared shoulders and gritted teeth. “I really don’t have time to deal with you.”

Max doesn’t look much happier to see her. Philip, meanwhile, has barely noticed Sally at all, being far more concerned with scouring the treeline for any sign of the Man-Cub, any clue to where he’s gone, calling all the while. He sounds terrible, exhausted. They _all_ sound terrible.

They’ll all have the time and attention for Sally when they hear what she has to say, though.

“If you’re looking for your Man-Cub,” she tells Evan, plainly, “I know where he is. I’ve seen him.”

At once, Evan’s demeanor changes, though not for the better.

 _“What.”_ The growl in his voice pitches even lower, and he closes on her, towering over her in a way she hasn’t had to endure for what feels like an age. “What do you mean!? Where is he!? What have you done!?”

Thankfully, it _is_ only Evan who responds to Sally’s presence with aggression. Max is staring at her, agog, but he’s come no closer, no doubt for fear of getting in Evan’s way, but Philip, upon hearing the commotion, rushes over and bodily shoves Evan aside to give Sally room to speak. He beckons her urgently, desperate for more information.

Sally hesitates briefly, ordering the words in her mind.

“... The Master has taken your Man-Cub back,” she forces herself to say. “I saw him, just now, in a trial.”

There. It’s said. It’s said, and Evan, Philip and Max, for a long while, only stand there in a kind of dumb, stunned silence. It isn’t difficult for Sally to imagine how they might feel; she’s sure she probably looked much the same, back then.

“... I’m sorry,” she eventually continues. “I know how much he meant to you, and it must be beyond awful to have to hear this. But for what it’s worth,” Sally makes a point of adding, “I overheard you arguing, and I don’t believe that this has anything to do with any of you or anything that you did. The Master has simply… realised his mistake, finally, and rectified it.”

Now, that _is_ a lie. It is a blatant, barefaced lie. But she has it within her power to spare them at least some of the pain, and it would be callous not to do so, when she’s able.

“Please don’t be tempted to blame yourselves. I highly doubt that there was anything that you could have done to prevent this, you know how the Master can be.”

It takes a good, long while for any of the three to drum up any kind of reaction at all, but Philip is the first, even if all he manages is to simply turn around and walk away. Sally half expects him to go back to searching and calling, but he doesn’t, instead vanishing into the shelter, and staying there. Evan and Max watch him go, and that, thank goodness, is enough to knock them out of their own stupors.

“... I see.” Evan won’t look at her, his gaze focused downwards and to the side as he comes to face her again. “... Thank you, Sally,” he murmurs. “You can go now.”

“MacMillan.” She resists the urge to reach for him. “... Evan. I -”

“I said, _you can go now,_ thank you.”

“... Very well.”

Well. It would have been too familiar a gesture, in any case. Regardless of Sally’s own feelings on the matter, it wouldn’t be right or proper to overstep any boundaries like that. She hardly knows him, despite having been here alongside him for so long, hardly knows any of them.

Though, all the same, she can’t help but linger at the treeline before she departs.

How dreadful that they should come to have something in common besides the work.

With Sally’s departure, Evan and Max are left in the clearing alone. In the absence of any other distraction but the deepening comprehension of Sally’s confirmation of their worst fears, it’s difficult to know what to do next, and that heavy, dumb silence settles over them once again. It’s all but unbearable, not least to Evan, who finds himself simultaneously grappling with the sheer _realness_ of this tragedy, despite knowing how inevitable it was, and his own lack of an answer for it.

He’s supposed to know what to do, damn it; Max and Philip will be counting on him, but every time he tries to work out what their next course of action should be, his mind draws a blank. He can’t even _think,_ and when he hears Max sniffle and start to whimper behind him, he’s almost grateful for the direction it offers.

“Oi, oi. Come on, now. Come on, Maxie. You’re alright. Come here. You’re alright. I’m here. You’re alright.”

Max is already clumsily trying, in vain, to rub away tears as he walks into Evan’s open arms.

“You’re alright,” Evan tells him, again, softly, embracing him. “We’re still together, we’ve not lost everything. It’ll be alright.”

“I want the Man-Cub back.” Max’s already subdued voice is further muffled by Evan’s shoulder. “It ain’t fair. I want him back.”

“I know, Maxie,” sighs Evan, resting his jaw against Max’s head. “I know. I want him back, too. And you’re right, it’s _not_ fair. But… if he’s turnin’ up in trials, it’s… it’s already done with, isn’t it.  Him upstairs has had him.”

And right out from under their noses, too. 

They didn’t even get the opportunity to fight for him, did they? Then again, it was idiotic to think that their self-centred taskmaster would think to go through them when he came to take back his missing property. He doesn’t believe himself to owe them anything, not when he holds all of the power in this place. Him upstairs can, and does, do as he pleases, always. 

Evan, as he stands there with Max and endeavours to soothe him - as if he can even begin to do such a thing - he feels, in more ways than one, as though they’ve been robbed, cruelly so. 

“... D’you think he’ll give him back if we ask real nice?”

“I highly doubt it, Maxie. And I’d imagine we’d get into more trouble for asking.”

There’s another loud, runny sniffle.

“Shit. It ain’t fair. It ain’t fair!”

“Shh, shh. I know, I know.” He chokes down the lump that threatens to form in his own throat as Max begins to cry in earnest. “I know, Maxie. I know.”

Max isn’t the only one, either. Evan can hear Philip sobbing quietly in the shelter, and as long as it’s been since the last time Philip came home from a trial in tears, the sound of it still cuts him to the quick. He can’t just leave him in there by himself.

“Evan, I’m s-” Another sniffle. “-sorry I said it was your fault.”

“It’s alright, Maxie. I’m sorry for what I said, too.”

And there are yet other, ever more grave concerns than that, besides. The work still needs to get done, or they’ll all be in for it. It doesn’t feel like things can get much worse than they are right now, but they can. They absolutely, certainly can, and Evan needs to make sure that they _don’t._

The show must go on.

“... Maxie.” He doesn’t settle for a good while, but when he does, Evan, still holding him, tries to speak as gently as he can. “I need you to do something for me, alright? It’s very, very important.”

“Huh?” Max looks at him, his face and eyes still wet. “What?”

“Max.” Christ. He’s not going to like it. “I… I need you to go down to the campfire, alright?”

“What!? Why!? I don’t wanna go down there! I don’t wanna!”

“I know! I know. Look,” says Evan, still doing his best to remain kind, even as Max pulls away from him, “I know it’s not going to be very nice, but I need you to do this for me, alright? I need you to go down to that campfire and get into as many trials as you can, to keep him upstairs happy so I can stay here and look after Philip. Can you hear him in that shelter, Max?”

Whilst it may be true that Max’s hearing isn’t the best, when he stops and listens, he frowns, looks down at the ground, and nods.

“Philip needs us,” Evan emplores. “Both of us. Please, Maxie. You understand, don’t you?”

“... Yeah. But…” Reluctantly, Max lifts his head. “... What if I see the Man-Cub?”

That’s what they’re all dreading, isn’t it? But there _is_ something Evan can tell him that might be of some much-needed comfort.

“... Max,” he says, putting his arm around Max’s shoulders and drawing him back in again, “Listen. Quite a while ago, I was talking to the Man-Cub, when you and Philip weren’t here - when Myers stabbed me, and you chased after him, d’you remember? - and I told him that we were sorry for what we’d had to do to him in the name of the work, and I asked him if he could see his way through, if things panned out like they have now, to... well. If he wouldn’t take it personally.”

“... What’s ‘take it personally’ mean?”

“Well, when you take something personally, it means you assume that whatever’s happenin’ to you must be somethin’ to do with you, yourself, personally. Like the Man-Cub, for example, I wanted to make sure he understood that it wouldn’t be because we don’t like him or because we _want_ to hurt him, it’s nothin’ to do with him, is it. It’s just the work.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Do you know what he said, Maxie?”

“No. What did he say?”

“I asked him not to take it personally, and he promised me that he wouldn’t, as long as we didn’t take it personally when he did what he had to do, either. We shook on it.”

“... So he’ll know that we still love him a whole lot?” Max doesn’t sound overly convinced, but he’ll take what he can get. “Even if we gotta catch him in a trial ‘n’ hook him ‘n’ stuff?”

“It won’t be very nice for him,” Evan admits, “But he understands. He knows it’s gotta be done, he knows we have to do it. And he might do some things to you that aren’t very nice, mightn’t he.”

“Yeah.”

“But we know it’s nothin’ to do with us, don’t we. It’s just what he’s gotta do.”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll be alright,” Evan tells him again, squeezing him. “It will. And you never know,” he says, when Max still doesn’t look back at him, “Maybe… maybe someday he’ll find his way back to us again, and we can all tell him we’re sorry ‘n’ make it up to him, you never know. He’s made it over here once before, hasn’t he?”

As shallow a platitude as it is, it seems to do the trick, and Max does, at last, manage to dry his eyes, sniffling as he nods and wipes his face on the back of his hand.

“I hope he comes back,” he mumbles. “D’you really think he will?”

Evan sighs.

“... Honestly,” he replies, with no small degree of regret, “I think him upstairs will be keepin’ a close eye on him from now on. He won’t want to lose him again. But… he’s wily, isn’t he, our Man-Cub. He might surprise us all.”

“I hope so.”

“Me too, Maxie. Me too. But… I need you to go down there, alright? And I need you to do your very, very best for as long as him upstairs will let you. Philip’s gonna be in a bad way, and I don’t want to leave him on his own. Can you do that for me?”

“... Yeah.” He’s still frowning, still desperately unhappy, but he’s trying, and trying very hard. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Thank you, Maxie. You... you’re a good lad, alright? You’re a good lad, and I’m very, very proud to have you.”

“Okay.”

Wouldn’t it be something if the boy really _did_ turn up on their doorstep again, Evan thinks, as Max reluctantly drags himself into the woods. As it is, though, it feels too much like he’s failed in his role as his family’s protector all over again. Naturally, him upstairs always has to win in the end, doesn’t he. Perhaps it was naive to think it could work out any other way.

Rubbing his face, Evan grits his teeth and forces down that wretched lump in his throat for a second time. He has to keep this place running; his own grief will have to wait.

That, and Philip needs him. Damn it all, and Philip’s been doing so well, too. This is really going to set him back, and Evan, cautiously stepping inside the shelter, can’t deny that he has some real concern for what the future might bring for it.

“... Philip?”

If Philip hears him, he doesn’t respond, and even as Evan comes close and kneels down in the hay by his side, he doesn’t look up from the armfuls of sheets he’s sobbing into. Of course, the boy’s scent will still be on them, won’t it, and Evan hasn’t the heart to take them from him. Instead, he quietly puts his arm around him, pulls him close, and touches his head to Philip’s temple to let him know that he’s not alone. At that, Philip does, at least, lean into him. It’s something.

And, as unsurprised as Evan is when that harsh, throaty sobbing pitches up into that kind of visceral, keening wail, it’s still intensely distressing to have to hear it again. All he can do is _be there_ with him, keep loving him. He’ll be alright if Evan sticks by him. The work may be one thing, but this, as far as Evan is concerned, is his real duty in this wretched hole.

Philip was never made for this place, despite the management’s best efforts to twist him and break him and carve him into some kind of animal monstrosity. He’s far too human to cope with tragedy and suffering on the scale he has to endure here - that he has to have a hand in _creating_ here - and losing the Man-Cub, _his_ Man-Cub, knowing that he’s going to have to face him in a trial eventually and inflict that suffering upon him himself? Of course it’s going to break him. Of course it is.

So, Evan kneels there with him and holds him, lets him howl and wail and cry for as long as he needs to. That’s how they’ve made it through everything else, after all, by sticking together, and although it does take a long time - a _very_ long time - Philip does, eventually, wear himself out enough that he can’t do much more but sit there and be held.

A little later, Philip is back outside, back at the treeline, calling. Evan tried, briefly, to dissuade him from it, well aware that it will only make matters worse when their Man-Cub inevitably fails to return, but couldn’t bring himself to stop him in the end. If this is what Philip needs to do to come to terms with what’s happened, then Evan will just have to let him get on with it.

It’s heartbreaking to listen to, though, it really is, and Evan can’t pretend that he isn’t struggling right there with him. While Philip’s mournful calls echo around outside the shelter, he’s still trying to busy himself inside of it, trying to put the place back together after Philip turned it upside down looking for their lost one earlier on. Maybe if he can do that, get things back in order in here, he can keep his own head on straight, as well. God knows, it feels like he’s falling apart inside.

His gaze keeps finding its way back to that row of painted handprints, hanging on the shelter’s back wall. His stomach drops every time he looks at it, and a part of him keeps telling him to just take the fucking thing down and throw it away, burn it, or drop it and lose it in the deeper woods so they can _forget,_ but they’re not going to forget, are they. He could scrub away every trace of the boy ever having been here and they still wouldn’t forget. That, and Philip would never forgive him. He’d never forgive himself, either, and if he’s honest, he doesn’t _want_ to forget. It would be beyond terrible if they forgot.

It’s while he’s picking up sheets and folding them, trying to get them tidy again, that he finds it, buried in amongst everything else: the boy’s scarf, shabby and still somewhat stained, despite their best efforts to get it clean, same as it ever was when he was wearing it.

All Evan can do, for a good, long while, is stare at the thing in his hand, and as hard as he tries to bottle himself up, to keep an appropriate and sensible lid on it, fighting with everything he’s got until that scarf is crumpled up in a white-knuckled fist, it’s more than he can bear.

There, on his hands and knees in the hay, Evan finally breaks down, and all the while, outside, Philip continues to call.

_Ou-wh. Ou-wh. Ou-wh._

*  *  *

_“Philip!”_

Somewhere, out in the woods, Jake is screaming himself hoarse.

“Philip! Where are you!? I’m sorry!”

Nobody is answering him. He’s been yelling into the darkness for longer than he’d like to imagine, long enough that he’s starting to taste blood in his throat, but he’s desperate enough that the taste of blood and the lack of any response haven’t discouraged him yet.

“Philip, I’m sorry! I’m sorry I ran away! I’m sorry! I’m right here! Please! I’ll come home! Where are you!?”

He knows where Philip is. He knows exactly where Philip is, and he knows that Philip can’t hear him, but denial is a seductive thing; he’d cut his own arm off if he thought it’d undo what he’s done and take him back to the clearing, back to the shelter, back to his family.

“Evan! Max! Where are you!?” Jake’s panting as he fights to catch his breath gives way to croaky, strangled sobs. “Philip, I’m sorry! I’m…!” He sinks to his knees, burying his face in his hands. “... I’m right here. Please, I’m right here.”

Almost the instant that he, Claudette, Nea and Dwight had arrived back at the campfire after that trial was wrapped up, Dwight had started complaining, just like always. The fact that he hadn’t made it out was everyone’s fault but his own, and as much as everybody else - including Jake - is used to Dwight’s horseshit, it had really spiralled into something else when Meg gave Dwight a _look,_ and said:

“Sure, Jan.”

… to which Dwight responded by exploding and screaming, _“STOP SAYING THAT!”_ at her. The little _“Sure, Jan.”_ bit had been a new thing when Jake left, but it’s evidently grown very, very stale in the time since then and now, and of course, once Dwight kicked off, so did everybody else, and Jake instantly came to regret his decision to return here more than he’d ever regretted anything in his whole sorry existence. It’s like he never left. Nothing has changed, and it’s worse than anything he could have imagined.  

He’s still kneeling, hunched over in the dirt, his face ruddy and sodden with tears, when he feels a hand on his shoulder, too small to belong to anyone he cares about.

“Hey.” It’s Claudette. Jake doesn’t look at her. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“It’s not _fucking_ okay.” He huffs, his jaw clenched. “What’re you doing here?”

“I followed you.” Undeterred, Claudette moves to kneel down softly at Jake’s side. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you run that fast,” she tells him, in the sympathetically lighthearted tone of someone trying to inject some humour into an undeniably horrible situation. “You think you could do that in a trial?”

Jake, however, isn’t in the mood for jokes.

“Leave me alone.”

“Hey, now. Hey. C’mon.” She’s nothing if not relentlessly kind, though, he’ll say that about her. “You couldn’t expect me to see you take off like that and not be worried about you. I thought you might disappear again.”

He breathes a heavy, thoroughly miserable sigh, wincing at the still-raw skin on his face as he tries to dry his eyes and nose on the back of his jacket sleeve.

“I wish I could.”

“Where’d you go? Were you just… in the woods? This whole time?”

“Mhm.”

“Wow. Do you… do you know how long it’s been?”

“No.”

“It’s been a while, Jake.” _Jake._ That’s his name, isn’t it. “Still,” says Claudette, taking care to keep her voice soft and gentle, “I can see why you’d wanna get out again if the first thing you come back to is everyone blowing up at each other like that.”

Jake huffs again, unable to bring himself to look at her, and for a few moments, she lets him sit there, doesn’t press him for a response. But it can’t last, can it.

“... So, who’s Philip? A friend of yours? Back home?”

“Yeah.” It’s not a lie, is it, not really. “I guess… I guess I was just dreaming.”

“While you were gone?”

“Yeah.”

“Man.” Once more, Claudette’s hand finds its way to Jake’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jake. This must be really rough for you.”

_You don’t know the half of it._

All the while, Jake is fighting back the urge to turn and snap at her. He _can’t_ speak to her like that, not when she’s trying _so, so hard_ to help him, and he knows her well enough that he can be sure she’s being sincere in it.

But he doesn’t _want_ her. He wants Philip, and Evan and Max; no matter how helpful or considerate or supportive Claudette may be, she _isn’t them,_ and her presence is only rubbing salt in the wound, making their absence all the more obvious and unbearable. The more she talks, the more she tries to get close to him, the more she touches him, the more Jake feels as if he could just turn around and bite her.

He’d always been able to tolerate Claudette and the others before, but he’s changed. There’s no denying it now. He’s changed, and changed far too much. Every word she says grates on him now, regardless of how much empathy or kindness might be behind those words.

He doesn’t want her.

In the end, though, Jake has to face reality, inevitably, and when Claudette encourages him to get up and walk with her, back to the campfire, he doesn’t put up much resistance. She seems encouraged by it, and reassures him that there’ll be plenty of time for him to dry his eyes and put himself back together between here and there, but it’s less that he’s has been convinced by her, per se, so much as that he’s simply _given in._ He knows, now, for certain, that he’s trapped here, that there’s no going back. He’s alone again.

Jake doesn’t say another word for the entire duration of the walk through the woods, and Claudette, after a while, stops trying to strike up conversation with him. He makes the whole trip with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground, because it’s hardly as if it matters which way they walk or whether he looks where he’s going or not, and even when they do eventually wind up back at the campfire, he still can’t bring himself to come up with any smalltalk.

It was an easy prediction to make that Dwight would still be bitching and griping about how nobody ever wants to help him or follow his instructions, because _obviously_ they’d do _so much better_ if they’d just do what he tells them all night long, and Jake, already being incomprehensibly far beyond the end of his proverbial tether, is rankled by his self-important complaining before he even gets close enough to see him.

Previously, Jake would have been able to tune him out, at least to some degree, much the same as everyone else does, but after everything that’s happened, Dwight’s incessant noise quickly sets his blood boiling so violently that he wishes he could vomit up his rage and spit it into his face like acid.

Alas, the next best thing will have to do.

“Dwight! You piece of shit!” Jake marches himself into the clearing that houses the campfire, shoving someone - he doesn’t register who - out of his way as he does so. “Will you shut the fuck up!? Nobody cares! Nobody fucking likes you! Shut your fucking mouth!”

The outburst immediately grabs the entire group’s attention, even stunning Dwight into silence, if only briefly. Unaccustomed to having anyone talk back to him, he glares, affronted, and is shortly coming over to meet Jake where he stands, in front of the fire. He stops, however, just short of coming within arm’s reach.

“What the fuck did you say to me, asshole?”

Christ, he’s so _small._ As Jake looks him up and down, all he can think of is how fucking _tiny_ Dwight looks. He might be the tallest amongst the Survivors, standing a good couple of inches taller than Jake himself, but Jake’s been getting into horseplay with people twice or three times Dwight’s size for fuck knows how long now, and coming back to this, coming back to _him,_ he can’t bring himself to be even slightly intimidated by him. He’s pathetic, and right now, Jake hates him, more than anyone or anything, in this world or any other.

“You fucking heard me,” he snaps back, stepping closer. “Who died and left you in charge, shithead?”

“What’s it to you!?” At least he has the guts to stand his ground. “You’ve got some nerve talking to me like that, where the fuck have you been!?”

“It’s none of your fucking business where I’ve been! Not that it fucking matters, nothing’s changed! You’re still a whiny dick! Nobody fucking owes you anything, Dwight! Shut the fuck up!”

“Alright, that’s enough!” God, the way he says it is insufferable, like a grown up telling off a naughty child. “I’m here trying to be strategic and trying to get people to use _actual tactics!_ If you’d just _listen to me_ -”

“Christ!” Jake, fully unable to stand it anymore, yells in his face. “Shut the fuck up! For the last _fucking_ time, Dwight, being an assistant manager at _Super Snappy Pizza_ or whatever the fuck doesn’t give you ‘leadership qualities’! You fucking piece of shit!”

“Fuck you!” Ah, bringing up the pizza place always strikes a nerve, doesn’t it. “What the fuck have you ever done for anybody, jackass!?”

If only he knew. But Jake isn’t here to justify himself to anyone. He’s here to _argue,_ and to that end, he presses on with the policy of saying whatever he can to hurt Dwight the most.

“Dwight, shut the fuck up. Look, I know it sucks that you got bullied in school, but you’ve gotta grow up and move on, okay?”

_“What!?”_

“What? That’s what all this is really about, isn’t it? The other kids picked on you when you were little, they kept picking on you when you grew up -” Jake takes another step towards him, coming face to face with him. “- And now that you’re here, you’re _desperate_ to be the guy who bullies everyone else, so you never have to feel that way again. Am I wrong?”

Apparently he’s nowhere near as wrong as Dwight would like him to be, as evidenced by Dwight finally losing his rag and shoving him with all of his might. Which, unfortunately for Dwight, doesn’t amount to much when Jake’s been wrestling with the likes of Evan and Max, and it’s shamefully easy for Jake to catch himself and then shove him back much, much harder. Dwight barely manages not to fall on his backside, but he comes back full of the kind of piss and vinegar that only someone who’s terrified of being embarrassed in front of a crowd can drum up.

“Fuck you! Come at me, if you wanna make somethin’ of it!”

“Oh! Oh! Huh!” Jake almost laughs at him. “So it’s a fight now, because _I pushed you back?_ I’m starting something? _Me?_ Because _I pushed you back?_ Is that what this is? It wasn’t a fight when you pushed me, but now that I’ve pushed you back, it’s a fight? Okay, sure, Dwight. Sure.”

“D’you wanna do this or not!?” He’s pouring it on just about as hard as he can, puffing out his chest, arms outstretched, the whole nine yards. It’s still laughable. “C’mon, bitch! Beef or chicken!?”

Now Jake really does laugh.

“Are you kidding? I’m not gonna fight you! What do you want me to do, shove you in a locker!?”

“Fuck you! What are you, a pussy!?” Dwight shoves him a second time, harder, but it’s still only enough to force him to take a step back. “Beef or chicken, bitch!?”

And when this fails to get a rise out of Jake, or to convince him to show any trace of fear at all, Dwight doubles his efforts, and shoves him again.

“Beef or chicken!?”

And again.

“Beef or chi-”

He’s cut short by Jake’s fist connecting swiftly and harshly with his mouth, and the unexpected blow is easily enough to knock him off his feet. He hits the dirt hard, and Jake, having been pushed well beyond his tolerance before he even got here and being far too eager for some means by which to vent the searing poison in his heart, is on him a second later, straddling him to pin him down while he grabs a fistfull of his shirt and his stupid fucking tie and rains down punches as hard and as fast as he can.

“Shit yeah!” Meg cheers, shamelessly enthralled. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

However, Dwight may make a lot of big talk, but he’s no fighter, and wouldn’t have been able to compete with Jake even before now. Somewhere through the pounding of his blood in his ears, Jake hears someone, one of the other girls, shouting at him to stop, but it’s not until somebody physically grabs him by the back of his jacket and hauls him off Dwight altogether that he’s in any way diverted from beating the living daylights out of him, and even then, Jake fights and kicks like a wild animal for all the fury he has over what’s happened to him, over the calamitous choice he’s made.

When he tries to turn on the person holding him back, though, all of that rage accounts for very little; he can’t even register what’s happening before he finds himself tripped and suddenly chest down in the soil, arms twisted behind his back and with his assailant’s knee pressed painfully between his shoulder blades. Not that it’s enough to knock the anger out of him, though.

“Rgh!” He struggles, as vain as it might be. “Get off’a me! Fuck you!”

“Calm down, son.” It’s an unfamiliar voice, worn with age and thoroughly unfazed by Jake’s display of wanton aggression. “That’s enough.”

“Aw, c’mon, Bill!” Meg protests loudly at the interruption. “Let ‘em fight! Nothing ever happens around here!”

“That wasn’t a fight, Red.” The old stranger remains unimpressed. “That was a beatdown. Somebody go ‘n’ pick that stringbean up before he chokes on his own blood.”

“Fuck you, old man.” He can hear Meg frowning. “You’re no fun.”

Bill, as his name turns out to be once Dwight has been picked up and somewhat put back together and Jake has been let go, is a newcomer, someone who arrived while Jake was away - a veteran, more than capable of putting an irate youngster in his place, and a much-needed voice of reason in this hellhole. When he comes to sit down next to Jake on the fallen tree a little way from the campfire, Jake senses that it’s more to keep an eye on him than that he actually wants to talk, but, given how pointless it would be to try to pick a fight with him, Jake has little choice but to tolerate him.

Everyone else has the good sense to stay well away after that performance, though.

“So.” Bill doesn’t trouble himself to make eye contact, focusing on the cigarette in his fingers. “You’re Jake, huh?”

“I guess.” Jake doesn’t care to look at him either, sitting with his elbows resting on his knees and glaring sourly at the ground between his feet. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothin’, son. Nothin’. I heard a few things about you, that’s all. Only, you’re a little different to what I’ve been told.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Hm?”

“I’m not your son,” snaps Jake, turning to him angrily. “Don’t call me that.”

“Fine, fine.” Again, Bill is unflustered by Jake’s anger. “You gave that pencil pusher a damn good asskickin’ though. You been sittin’ on that for a while?”

“Hm.” Scowling, he goes back to watching the dirt. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t. But folks don’t just snap like that without a reason, kid.”

“What, are you scared I’m gonna turn on someone else?”

“No, no. I’m just curious, that’s all. Claudette was singin’ your praises all the while you were gone, she told me all about you. You’re not what I was expectin’, I gotta tell you.”

“Yeah, well. That’s what I’m here for, I guess. Fuckin’, disappointing everybody, all the time.”

“Hey, I ain’t disappointed. That little shithead had it comin’.”

“Huh?” This time when Jake looks at him, it’s with genuine surprise. “What?”

“What?” Bill looks back at him. “Maybe now he’ll think twice before openin’ his big mouth.”

“Why’d you stop me, then?”

“You made your point, kid. Save some for the next time he makes an ass of himself.”

Well. Maybe Bill isn’t so bad.

After a while, Claudette comes over to check on them, no doubt also somewhat concerned about Jake’s uncharacteristic belligerence, but when it turns out that Jake and Bill are actually getting along fairly well, she’s visibly relieved, and gently encourages them both to come and sit near the fire with everyone else. She’s trying to reintegrate him into the group, Jake realises, and as much as he doesn’t _want_ to be part of the Survivors’ little bunch, even if they don’t feel like his “people” anymore, he reluctantly abides.

Not that he’s in a hurry to talk to anyone, especially not when he can see them all taking worried glances at him and chattering quietly amongst themselves. It’s understandable, he supposes; he vanished for god knows how long without warning and without reason, only to return to them just as suddenly, fierce, strange and wolfish. They must have their suspicions about where he’s been and what’s happened to him.

He’s still got the shiv that Evan gave him in his pocket. If anyone finds it, they’re going to ask questions, and as much as Jake cherishes it (and as tempting as it is, still, to stab Dwight in the throat with it), he needs to get rid of it. It’d be an easy thing, he knows, to simply wander into the woods and throw it into the shadows there, and guaranteed, he would never see it again, but he can’t bring himself to go through with it. It’s all he has left.

Speaking of Dwight, he’s sitting on the ground with his back resting against one of the other fallen trees the Survivors tend to use as regular seating, nursing a still-bloody nose and split lip and trying to get the dirt off his glasses. _Silently._ Fucking _good._ It’s about time someone taught Dwight a fucking lesson. Evan would never stand for the likes of it, Jake reflects. He’d set Dwight straight in a fucking heartbeat, and although Jake can’t boast even a shred of Evan’s… _authoritative presence,_ he hopes that he’s done enough to drive the message home.

Learning to punch properly came in handy, didn’t it.

There’s a very subdued, uncomfortable hush hanging over the campfire. People are still talking, but it’s in low, guarded tones and only to those nearest to them, and Jake can’t pretend to be the least bit unhappy about it. The worst thing about the campfire has always been the fact that nobody can ever just _shut up,_ that there’s always got to be some stupid bullshit to bicker over, and now that it’s finally quiet enough for Jake to hear himself think, he’s not about to complain about it.

Claudette is sitting with him. Thankfully, she also seems to understand Jake’s desire for peace, and she’s stopped trying to touch him. He can cope with her like this, just about. She’s still nobody that he wants, but he can cope, and, gradually, Jake’s inner turmoil quells enough that he can bear to speak to her.

“... Claudette?”

“Hm?” She’s making an effort to keep the atmosphere calm and relaxed, speaking softly. “What’s up?”

“What’s…” Not that Jake can make himself look at her, though. “... What’s a ‘man-cub’?”

“What?” She chuckles. “Where’s this come from?”

“Man, I don’t know,” Jake replies, shrugging as he tells another necessary lie. “I just, I remembered it from somewhere, while I was away. Is it a thing?”

“... Did you never see _The Jungle Book_ when you were a kid?”

“I don’t think so, why?”

“Are you serious!?” If anyone was going to spoil the peace, of course it would be Meg. “You never saw _The Jungle Book?_ Are you fucking serious?”

Jake bristles. Everyone is looking at him now. But Meg, as expected, is unrepentant, and the next thing he knows, she’s dancing around the campfire and making a horrendous racket.

 _“Oh, I’m the king of the swingers!_  
_The jungle V-I-P!_  
_I’ve reached the top and had to stop,_ _  
And that’s what’s botherin’ me!”_

Soon enough, Laurie’s joining her, and making just as much noise.

 _“I wanna be a man, Man-Cub!_  
_And stroll right into town!_  
_And be just like the other men!_ _  
I’m tired of monkeyin’ around!”_  

And naturally, there can’t be any nonsense going on without Ace inviting himself to join in with it, so that’s the three of them, then, shimmying around the place and playing the fool.

 _“Oh, oo-be-doo! I wanna be like you!_  
_I wanna walk like you, talk like you, too!_  
_You see, it’s true!_  
_An ape like me!_  
_Can learn to be_ _  
Human too!”_

Thank goodness it is just the three of them, though. Claudette’s taken one look at Jake’s face and been considerate enough not to get involved. Meanwhile, Nea is watching on with thinly veiled embarrassment, and Dwight is far too sore to have any intention of budging from where he’s sat. Bill, too, looks like he could be almost as irritated by the whole stupid parade as Jake is, but that might just be his natural resting expression. It’s hard to tell.

Fucking typical, Jake thinks, that the only time he’s ever heard anyone sing on this side of the fence would be for the express purpose of creating an annoyance.

But they do have to come back to Jake in the end, and he has to tell them, again, that he’s never seen this movie that they’re all talking about. His fellows seem collectively perplexed; is it really that big of a deal?

“Everybody’s seen it!” Meg exclaims, now thoroughly hopped up on mischief. “How could you not have seen it?”

“I don’t know!” Losing patience, Jake throws his hands up. “I was studying a lot when I was a kid, I didn’t get the chance to see a lot of stuff everybody else has seen!”

“... Are you serious?” Coughing as he repositions himself, Dwight narrows his eyes at them all. “You’re telling me that this asshole was such a bookworm as a kid that he never even saw _The Jungle Book,_ and this whole time you’ve all been calling _me_ a nerd?”

“Shut the fuck up, Dwight.”

This time, Jake only has to say it once. Before that unpleasant, oppressive quiet can settle in again, though, Ace comes through with a welcome distraction.

“You guys know that _The Jungle Book_ wasn’t just a movie, right?”

“Huh?” That’s piqued Meg’s interest. “Really?”

“Well, sure,” replies Ace, shrugging. “Why do you think it’s called ‘The Jungle Book’? And there’s more than just that one story in it, too.”

“Now, just a minute.” Nea eyes him with suspicion. “Is this true, or is this Ace Facts™?”

When one talks about Ace Facts™, the trademark symbol is important, and very much implied even if one doesn’t verbally indicate it at all. They all know it’s there.

“No! No!” Ace protests. “It’s true! It was a book! From like 1890-something! There were lots of stories in it!”

“I don’t know,” says Meg, side-eyeing him. “That sounds a hell of a lot like Ace Facts™ to me.”

“It’s true!” Ace argues, again. “Hell, I can tell you a different story from The Jungle Book, if you want! You guys wanna hear a story, right?”

“You’re so full of shit, Ace.”

“Aw, come on! I’ll tell you guys the story of Mowgli’s Brothers, how about that? If I tell you the story, the whole thing, will you believe me then?”

Ace is, undeniably, very much full of shit. They all know it, but at the end of the day, a story is a story, and the Survivors are soon gathered around to listen, although some make more of an effort to appear uninvested in it than others. Ace, always delighted to have an audience, takes his place in the middle of their rough circle, next to the fire.

That, and regardless of how notorious a bullshitter Ace may be, he’s a _great_ storyteller. Nobody can deny that he’s a fantastic entertainer, as long as one remembers to take anything he says with a grain - or, more likely, a truckload - of salt.

Once he’s certain that he has everyone’s attention, Ace throws out his arms in a flourish that sets the campfire’s flames dancing, sending embers swirling and casting dramatic, shifting shadows on his face.

“Now this,” he begins, glancing around at them all with a roguish grin, “Is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky! And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but -”

There’s a sparkle in Ace’s eye, something more than the light of the campfire, as he speaks in a low and mysterious tone that effortlessly captivates his listeners.

“- The wolf that shall break it _must die!_ As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runs both forwards, and back, for the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf -”

That grin begins to bear teeth.

“- Is the pack!”

He’s got them now, and he well knows it, as he begins to tell the story with enthusiasm.

“Now. It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills, when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, yawned, and stretched out his paws one at a time to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big grey nose dropped across her four little cubs, and the big, bright moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived…”

Though distracted, Jake tries to listen. 1890-something, that’s what Ace said, isn’t it? Is this a story that Evan would know?

“... Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley that ran down to the little river, he could hear the angry, snarly, singsong whine of a tiger who has caught nothing and doesn’t care if all the jungle knows about it…”

Evan. Jake misses him already. And Philip, and Max. He hasn’t been away from them for that long, but the knowledge that he’s never going to see them again, not on friendly terms, weighs heavily in his heart. He’s made such a mess of it all; he had everything he could have wanted, and he threw it all away.

“... And Mother Wolf said, ‘Something is coming uphill! Get ready.’ And Father Wolf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his leap…”

He had to, though. He had to. All of this regret and anguish, it’s all selfish, isn’t it? No matter how much Jake might regret coming back here and trapping himself, it’s a necessary sacrifice to make, if he wants Evan, Philip and Max to be safe from the Entity and its jealousy.

“‘Is that a man’s cub?’” He’s doing the voices, Jake finally notices. Ace is doing the voices. “‘I have never seen one. Bring it here.’”

Well, of course he’s doing the voices. Ace always does the voices. And why wouldn’t he? He’s very good at it.

“‘How little! How naked, and how bold!’ Mother Wolf said. ‘And so this is a man’s cub. Was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man’s cub among her children?’”

A man’s cub? Is that what he said? Jake forces himself to pay more attention, just in time to hear Ace doing his very best tiger’s growl.

“And the moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Shere Khan’s great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance! And Father Wolf said, ‘Shere Khan does us great honour. What does Shere Khan need?’ But all the while, his eyes were very angry...”

Even Nea is smiling at Ace’s very animated retelling of this old story, which speaks volumes to his talent for drama. He bares his teeth when he speaks for the wolves, just enough for it to come through in his voice, and when Shere Khan retorts, Ace rumbles and snarls and dips his head to make him sound suitably fearsome.

“‘My quarry! A man’s cub went this way! It is mine! Give it to me!’”

But then he says something, something that Jake remembers hearing before.

“But Father Wolf said, ‘The wolves are a free people! We take orders from the head of the pack, and not from any striped cattle-killer! The man’s cub is ours, to kill if _we_ choose!’ But Shere Khan didn’t like that one bit, and he roared, ‘Ye choose and ye do not choose! What is this talk of choosing!? Am I to stand nosing into your dog’s den for my fair dues!? It is I, Shere Khan, who speak!’”

_The boy is ours, Myers, and we’ll be the ones to decide what to do with him._

“‘And it is I, Raksha the Demon who answer!’” Mother Wolf’s voice comes through fierce and true, with a great snarl. “‘The man’s cub is mine, Shere Khan! Mine to me! And he shall not be killed! He shall live to run with the pack and to hunt with the pack, and in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubs - frog eater! - he shall hunt thee! Now _get hence!_ ’”

Could it be?

“And Mother Wolf was not called the Demon for compliment’s sake, either. Shere Khan might’ve faced Father Wolf, but he didn’t dare fight Mother Wolf, for he knew that where she was, she had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death! So he backed out of the cave, still growling, and…”

It’s sinking in, now, and Jake can scarcely believe it.

“... ‘Wilt thou keep him, Mother?’”

That son of a bitch.

“Mother Wolf gasped! And she told Father Wolf, ‘Keep him! He came naked, by night, alone and very hungry, and yet he was not afraid! Keep him? Assuredly I will keep him. Lie still, little frog, o thou Mowgli - for Mowgli the Frog I will call thee - the time will come when thou wilt hunt Shere Khan as he has hunted thee.’”

This whole time, this whole _fucking_ time, Evan was making a hundred-odd year old _pop culture reference._ Fucking ridiculous.

But, then again, just like him. God, Jake could just stand up and walk home right now, if he knew he’d ever get there, and he finds himself contemplating, more seriously than he’d like, the alternative suggestion that Sally made, just before he’d entered that trial with her.

They’d armed him, painted his face. He’d been one of them in every sense already, short of actually getting into trials and doing the work. But he was facilitating them while _they_ did the work, wasn’t he? He was only ever one step removed from being a Killer himself. Would it really make that much difference if he actually joined in and got his hands dirty?

The rest of the story passes him by, except for the odd word or phrase here and there, mostly due to the realisation that he’s sitting here, surrounded by his fellow Survivors, giving genuine consideration to the concept of turning traitor on them.

_But you’ve done it once before, haven’t you?_

*  *  *

Another trial. Within moments of it beginning, Jake sees two things: the farmhouse, and a stray beartrap, waiting to be picked up. Ironic that he should bump into Evan here, of all places.

As hard as he’s been trying to train himself out of calling him “Evan”, Jake just can’t seem to get used to calling him “the Trapper” again. “Evan” is just so much less cumbersome, and he has to think twice before he speaks to any of his fellow Survivors in case it really does just roll off his tongue like that by accident. If they knew he’d been sitting on the house’s front steps not so long ago and drinking with the guy they’re all running from, he can’t imagine what they’d say about it.

_Just stay hidden. Don’t let him find you, don’t let him see you. It’ll be easier for both of you._

That’s the best solution Jake has been able to come up with. It’s cowardly, yes, but it’ll spare Evan the torment of having to hurt him, and Jake himself would really rather not have to get hurt _by_ him. That’s the strategy he has in mind when he crouches next to a generator, ready to move off the instant he gets the slightest hint that Evan might be approaching.

It’s a strategy that works out very well, at least to begin with. Although the generator only gets repaired very, very slowly for the fact that Jake is constantly ducking away from it and hiding, it gets repaired nonetheless, even if his fellows have finished with another two - in between getting chased and occasionally caught - in the time it takes Jake to make good on this one. They aren’t going to be very pleased with him, especially given that he daren’t go near enough to help anyone when they _do_ get caught, but he’s willing to bet that they won’t mention it.

Dwight’s come up with two black eyes since their little scuffle and hasn’t tried to talk back to Jake once during that time. Laurie’s a no nonsense type, doesn’t have the time for drama, and handles her own business in trials often enough that she rarely gets uppity about it when someone else does the same. Bill, meanwhile, seems tired and fed up enough that he might even half expect it. Jake doesn’t anticipate that he’ll get many complaints from this lot.

The trouble occurs, however, when Jake starts looking for another generator to get to work on, and finds that there aren’t any nearby. He’s going to have to travel to find his next objective, and that means potentially crossing Evan’s path.

Jake hasn’t been frightened in a trial for a long, long time. There are certain outcomes that he’d prefer to avoid, obviously, because getting bludgeoned in the head or having one’s back carved open and summarily being stuck up on a hook to slowly and agonisingly bleed out never gets any more pleasant with time or repetition, but it’s not _frightening_ anymore. It’s just something that happens sometimes, something that one has to deal with every now and then. It’s an occupational hazard.

But now, as Jake becomes increasingly aware of Evan’s presence growing nearer and nearer as he creeps around in search of a generator he can work on, he is deeply, viscerally frightened. There’s something at stake this time, something so much worse than simple, physical pain.

He’s very, very closeby, moving around. Jake can’t see or hear him yet, but Evan is _here,_ somewhere, no doubt also in a mind to look for generators, and Jake cannot help but feel, now that he’s _this close,_ that he has made an awful, terrible mistake by trying to move through the middle of the place to save some time instead of staying near the outskirts where it’s safe. If he can cross the cornfield, he can get away from Evan and get himself hidden and out of trouble again, but that would mean leaving the cover of the stack of hay bales he’s crouched behind and putting himself out in the open. Not ideal.

He’s getting closer.

He’s getting closer, and Jake still can’t tell exactly where he is, doesn’t know which way he needs to run. It’s been so long, so, so long, since he was frightened in a trial, but he’s frightened now, so much so that every rapid beat of his heart feels like a punch in the stomach, and all it takes is the sound of a twig snapping under somebody’s foot somewhere nearby - maybe even under _his own_ foot, he realises too late - for him to panic and bolt for the cornfield, all but leaping out of his cover to do it.

Out of cover, and straight into Evan’s path as he heads in the same direction from behind another stack of hay bales, maybe twenty feet away.

They both freeze at the sight of each other.

It’s not like Evan to hesitate in a trial. Not once, in all the time that Jake knew him as the Trapper, did he ever see him hesitate, but he’s hesitating now, shifting his weight where he stands and squeezing the grip of his cleaver as he fights to convince himself to take a step towards his former friend. Jake, too, knows that he needs to _flee,_ to _get away,_ but all he wants is to run to Evan and throw his arms around him and _go home._

But he can’t, can he. Evan has to do the work. He doesn’t have a choice. Neither of them have a choice, not now.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ Jake mouths, at a loss for anything else he can do. _“I’m so sorry.”_

And Evan, knowing that Jake can’t see his face, only gives the smallest shake of his head, so subtle that Jake himself almost misses it for how hard he’s trying not to be seen doing it.

It’s not fair.

Just then, the pounding clatter of a generator starting up some little way away shatters the moment, and Evan’s head snaps to face it. He takes one last, brief look at Jake before his head drops and his shoulders tense, and he turns to stride away across the cornfield towards it, becoming the Trapper once more.

Jake, wiser than to waste the opportunity he’s been afforded, retreats in the opposite direction, vanishing himself as best he can in the debris and underbrush that litters the trial area’s outer boundary. Fuck doing generators, fuck all of it; Evan’s risked enough by letting him go once, he won’t do it again. He _shouldn’t_ do it again. He shouldn’t have done it in the first place.

Who have they even got left? Jake hasn’t been paying attention. It shouldn’t be much longer until the trial is over, in any case - the generator that gave Evan a convenient escape route a few moments ago was the fourth, so Jake’s fellows only need to wrangle one more before they can open the gates and leave.

That fifth generator comes, after what feels, to Jake, like an eternity of listening to the others getting into scrapes with Evan and his traps. Not all of those scrapes end in their favour; Jake is quickly learning that Bill is more of a fighter than a runner, and it’s not an attitude that serves him well here. They lose him just as someone else makes a start on one of the exit gates, and Evan is making a concerted effort to remove Dwight from play as well, by the sounds of it. It must be Laurie at the gate, then, and Jake steels himself to make a run for the exit so that he can escape with her.

It’s fucking appalling that he’s behaved like this. He’s going to have to get over this bullshit and start pulling his weight, god knows he can’t be avoiding Evan and the others like this forever.

Laurie gets the gate open just as Jake is coming near, but Evan is closing in too, and Jake realises that he’s almost certainly going to have to dodge him if he’s going to get out. He takes a brief glance over his shoulder as the gate comes into view, and sure enough, there’s Evan, rounding the corner, hot on Dwight’s heels.

_Don’t let him catch you. Don’t put him in a position where he has to hurt you. Just get out._

A window frame in a wall ahead offers a means by which Jake can get ahead, put some distance between himself and Evan, and the open exit lies just beyond it. He runs harder, locking his gaze on that window frame, getting ready to vault through it -

\- and is barged out of the way just short of making the jump by Dwight, who hurries to clamber through ahead of him. Jake hops through right after him, but it’s not enough. He feels Evan’s hand close around his ankle midway through the gap, and he can only watch Dwight sprint through the gate and out of the trial as he’s dragged back and slung over Evan’s shoulder like he weighs nothing at all.

He’s sure he passed a hook a little way back. There’s no way he’s going to wriggle out of Evan’s grip before he gets there. But there _is_ something he can do, he remembers: the shiv. He’s still got the shiv that Evan gave him, and as awful and wretched and sickening as it feels to use it like this, Jake doesn’t have much of a choice.

_You need to get rid of it. Do it._

Pulling the jagged piece of scrap metal from his pocket, Jake swallows, already regretting what he’s about to do, and plunges it into the solid flesh of Evan’s shoulder as hard as he can. It’s enough to make Evan flinch and drop him, and he makes a mad dash for the exit as soon as his feet hit the ground.

Laurie is waiting for him near the gate, likely with the intention of coming to his aid if he got hooked, and she joins him as he heads for it. They both stop dead in their tracks, though, at the anguished roar that rings out behind them as Evan sees exactly what he’s been stabbed with, and the almighty crash that follows it, a generator being brutally booted onto its side and sent rolling. Laurie has to grab Jake’s arm and pull him away and through the gate after that, but they see no sign of Evan as they leave.

When they all return to the campfire, rather than the dressing down that Jake had been fully expecting for his lack of any kind of contribution to the trial, he’s instead being assaulted with endless excited, awe-struck questions, most of them along the lines of “What did you _do_ to him!?”, much to his chagrin.

“I don’t know!” he lies, quickly losing any shred of patience he might have had after the ordeal. “I don’t fucking know! Will you all just shut the fuck up and leave me alone!?”

Jake’s fresh-forged reputation for aggression quickly buys the others’ silence once he raises his voice and threatens to stand up from where he’s seated, and for a long time, all he can do is sit there, bristling, even after they all back off and give him the space he so desperately needs. They’ll settle down again eventually, but for the time being, they’re all tiptoeing around him like he’s some kind of unpredictable feral beast, and he’s thoroughly tired of it.

What he needs is a place he can go to get away from them. He needs a shelter. But Jake can’t bend steel or drive improvised bolts with a sledgehammer, which is to say nothing of the fact that he’d have to carry it all back to the campfire in the first place. But he _can_ dig. That much he can do, and with that in mind, the next time the Entity turns them all out into one of its shitty little Nightmare playpens for some exercise, he’s on the lookout for a shovel.

It doesn’t occur to the others to actually _look_ for anything while they’re out here. It never does. As always, they’re more or less just continuing with their usual horseshit, but they’re all too happy to let Jake wander off on his own when he sets about scouring the place for anything he can make use of. It’s an iron foundry, for goodness’ sake. He really ought to be able to find a shovel here.

Bill, to his credit, tags along despite Jake’s newfound infamy, albeit at a distance. He seems pleasantly surprised that there might be a practical purpose to these little outings, with the concept no doubt being a new one to him, considering that he’s been stuck hanging around with the rest of the Survivors since he got here.

“So, what’re we lookin’ for?”

Jake doesn’t bother to look at him.

“‘We’ aren’t looking for anything,” he replies, coldly, as he digs around in a promising-looking corner of the foundry.

“Alright.” Bill, as ever, is unperturbed. “What’re _you_ lookin’ for?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just tryin’a help, son.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Right, right. How about this,” says Bill, still entirely unconcerned by Jake’s attitude. “You tell me what you’re lookin’ for, and I’ll go look for it _way, way over there,_ so you can look for it over here, by yourself. That better?”

“... I’m looking for a shovel.”

“Then I’m gonna go look for a shovel over there. I’ll see you later.”

“... Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

*  *  *

“So, what’re we diggin’?”

Bill is persistent, Jake will give him that. And polite enough to correct himself when Jake glares at him, too.

“Oh. My mistake. What’re _you_ diggin’?”

His interest is bothersome, but there’s very little that Jake can do about him. He’s wholly immune to intimidation, and Jake supposes that he would be, considering who he is and the sort of horrors he’s likely seen. A crotchety, traumatised twenty-something probably doesn’t even place in Bill’s top one hundred in terms of items worthy of his concern.

“I’m gonna dig under this tree,” Jake grudgingly tells him. “I need somewhere to go that’s _quiet,_ and since I know I’m not gonna be able to build anything by myself, this is gonna have to do.”

“You’re gonna live in a hole in the ground.” Bill looks and sounds as unimpressed as ever. He gives a lazy shrug. “Eh, makes as much sense as anythin’ else in this crazy dumpster fire. Mind if I give you a hand?”

“... Sure.” There’s nothing to be done about him. “Do whatever you want.”

They both managed to turn up a shovel at the foundry in the end, but thankfully, Bill’s idea of “helping” turns out to be standing around, leaning on his shovel’s handle and smoking while Jake gets on with the actual digging. That said, he _is_ doing his bit in deflecting the others’ curiosity away from Jake so that he can focus, which is considerably more helpful than any attempt by him at getting into the hole and moving dirt would be.

He has his uses, it seems. Perhaps he understands more than Jake initially assumed.

The tree that Jake has decided to set himself up beneath is a great, huge affair a little way from the campfire with enormous, thick roots and a trunk as wide and as round as a fairly substantial dinnertable, and Jake is hoping that the Entity knows enough about trees of the kind this one is made to resemble to be aware that its roots ought to spread outwards more than they reach downwards. It’ll provide a decent ceiling for his “shelter”, and once he can get something covering the bare earth underneath, it should be decently warm, dry and comfortable.

And _quiet._

Once he’s got a space dug out under the tree with room enough to stretch out and roll around a bit, Jake is satisfied, and although he doubts that he’ll be able to lug a whole hay bale back to the campfire, he’s fairly certain that there’ll be _something_ he can use to improve it. It’s no substitute for the shelter, not least because it lacks the shelter’s best and most significant defining feature, namely, the people who were in it, but it’s the best he can do. He’ll be able to get away, now, at least temporarily.

Ironic that he should have to concern himself with escaping outside of trials almost as much as he does in them.

*  *  *

They’ve been turned out into a place they’ve never seen before. It looks like some sort of hospital, but it’s far too modern to be anything to do with Sally, so it can only mean that the Entity has employed a new Killer. It’s a conclusion that all of the Survivors arrive at collectively, but while everyone else is wandering around the place worrying and working themselves and each other into an anxious froth over when they’re going to run into this new tormentor and what abilities they might have when they inevitably do - as if they could possibly stand a chance of guessing - Jake has spotted something far more important to concern himself with.

_Mattresses._

Dozens and dozens of mattresses. The hospital - or whatever this macabre shithole used to be - is chock full of them, along with all kinds of other useful things, like sheets and curtains and cables and carpets, and Jake quickly busies himself with gathering up as much of it as he can find. Grabbing a gurney with reasonably functional wheels, he leaves the others to their fearful speculations and wanders off to give the place a proper look over, maybe learn where the exits might be, where the good hiding spots are, things like that, while he searches for a few reasonably clean mattresses and sheets to bring back to the little den he’s dug out for himself.

Evan, Philip and Max are going to _love_ this place, Jake reflects, as he drags a mattress that looks decently free of bloodstains off its gurney and onto his own. It’s been god knows how long since either Evan or Philip slept in anything remotely like a real bed, and Max has probably never slept in a bed before in his life. They’re going to be over the moon when they come here and see that there are _mattresses._

Then there’s the new Killer to think about, isn’t there. What will they be like? Will they join the family, or will they turn out to be another Sally or another Myers, someone who can’t mind their manners or be decent enough to be welcomed in? Evan will get the measure of them and let them know their place in _very_ short order, that’s for sure. He and Philip will take care of it, no doubt about it.

When Jake passes the others, they’re huddled around something that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a television set. Unsurprisingly, there’s only static on the screen, but the fact that it’s a television set that appears to be receiving power and somewhat operational is enough to capture the interest of a group of desperately bored youngsters and misfits. They’re all there, even Bill, trying to figure out how to make the thing work, none of them understanding that whether the fucking thing works or not has precisely nothing to do with them.

It’ll work when the Entity decides it should work, and not before. But of course, making the television work would require the Entity to have a little creativity and think about what ought to show up on the screen, and that would be far, far too much effort. All they’re going to get is static, no matter what they do.

Not that anyone will be deterred from it, mind you. Having seen Jake and Bill come back from the foundry with a pair of shovels, they’re now talking about fetching this utterly pointless TV down from its perch on top of a filing cabinet and bringing it back with them. They’re aware enough of the Nightmare’s nonsensical workings to know that it won’t need to be connected to an outlet to work - they’re _so close_ to the epiphany that will disillusion them - but not enough to know that they won’t get much further than that, even if they do bring it home.

They’re welcome to it, as far as Jake is concerned. They can occupy themselves with their stupid TV for as long as they like, and with any luck, it’ll keep them busy while he’s trying to wrestle three mattresses and several armfuls of sheets through the tiny entrance of his den.

By the time they’re being herded back to the campfire, the gurney Jake has been wheeling around is stacked high with all kinds of useful treasures, and although he gets a few odd looks from his fellows, they don’t voice any opinions they might have out loud. Likewise, they have nothing to say about it when Jake is wrestling with that first mattress and trying to figure out how to fit it between the two thick roots of the tree that frame the den’s entrance, something he’s tremendously thankful for.

He’s actually quite grateful when Bill makes his way over to check on him and offers to help him roll the mattress up so they can shove it into the den together. Between the two of them and with one of the plastic tarps Jake brought back from the hospital wrapped around it like a burrito, Jake inside the den pulling on the mattress and Bill outside pushing it, they get there in the end, and once the other two are wedged inside as well, it’s very satisfactory, easily the best thing that’s happened since Jake returned here.

Bill is considerate enough not to invite himself inside once Jake is done stuffing all of his new sheets into the den, and he’s crouching just outside when Claudette comes to join him.

“You okay in there, Jake?”

Well. She might be tempted to look in if he doesn’t answer her or come to meet her. It’s a pain to be interrupted when he’s trying to get everything where he wants it, but Jake reluctantly concedes that there’s nothing else for it, and comes out far enough to rest his elbows on the ground outside, lying in the den entrance on his belly.

“I’m good. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” says Claudette, her amusement painted all over her face. “Just wondering what you’re up to.”

“Well, now you know.”

Now that he’s got somewhere of his own to retreat to, Jake isn’t nearly as prickly about her being there anymore, and Claudette smiles, sitting down near enough to talk, but taking care not to crowd him. She understands, it seems, about Jake’s need for space, even if she can’t possibly comprehend the reasons behind it, and it helps. Bill, too, has set himself down a couple of feet away; despite the fact that he could ostensibly do as he pleases and Jake would just have to put up with it, he’s being very thoughtful, and that, too, goes a long way.

“... I guess you got a little taste of solitude while you were away, huh?” Claudette gives a sympathetic tip of her head. “Must be tough coming back to this.”

“Yeah.” Jake rests his chin on his arms as he lies there. “You can say that again.”

It’s not true, though, is it. What he had back at the clearing, back in the shelter, was the precise opposite of solitude. Solitude certainly would have been his preference before then, in some distant previous life, but now he knows there’s something out there that’s better than solitude, doesn’t he. That’s the real problem, that there’s something better, and he can never have it back.

However, with the den being there, and him being in it, the point is driven home fairly soundly that Jake has no intention of rejoining everybody else at the campfire, and when he doesn’t readily lend himself to conversation either, Claudette kindly takes the hint and shuffles off, taking Bill with her.

They must think he’s gone mad, and perhaps they wouldn’t be wrong if they did.

Jake watches them go, and notices, looking towards the campfire, that a handful of the others are being called into a trial. Better them than him, he thinks, and maneuvers himself, somewhat awkwardly, backwards into the den.

It _is_ quiet in the den, and warm, and comfortable, now that it’s full of mattresses and sheets. Jake can hole up in there and shut everything else out, forget where he is, and it almost feels okay, until he notices just _how_ quiet it is.

Before too long, he’s lonely enough to bundle up most of his collected sheets so that he can curl up against the heap and nuzzle into it, but even after it’s warm with his own body heat, it’s still silent, still motionless, still smells unfamiliar. It has no heartbeat, can’t hold him, can’t kiss him, can’t sing to him; Jake can’t fool himself, and even if he could, there’s no getting away from the sensation of the Entity’s overbearing presence squeezing at his brain. He’s never going to be able to sleep.

Solitude is worthless.

Worthless, but it’s what he’s chosen. He’s stuck with it.

*  *  *

Nothing changes in the Nightmare. It’s not like the real, waking world, where the systems that keep people tied down and miserable are only falsities created by  _ other people, _ illusory at best. In the real, waking world, change can always happen, if enough folks realise it, and one only tends to lose his power by believing that he doesn’t have any. But the Nightmare is commanded, in almost every aspect, by the Entity, for whom any kind of major, lasting change is inconvenient, and therefore expressly forbidden. Change can  _ never _ happen here. 

The people, the individuals in the Nightmare,  _ they  _ can change. The Entity, for all the power it holds, cannot twist the hearts of the people it holds prisoner here, no matter how hard it might wish that it could. But the Nightmare itself? Out of the question. The Entity has to eat, after all, and the Nightmare, with its endless trials, is the means by which it satiates its bottomless hunger. 

It was naive to believe, even for a moment, that when Jake managed to change things for himself, they would remain changed forever. That the Nightmare would find a way to return to its intended state was never merely a possibility; it was inevitable, unavoidable, and really, they were all expecting it, weren’t they? If they weren’t, they should have been. They’ve all been here long enough to know better. 

As he slips quickly and quietly through the swamp’s tall reeds, Jake wonders, not for the first or last time, how bad it would be, really, to find himself on the other side of this trial, or any other. Would it really be so terrible? Staying where he is has been pretty fucking awful, he has to admit; the other Survivors drive him mad just by existing near him, but isolating himself to catch a break from them grows more wretched and miserable with every moment he spends doing it.

It’s not the time to be thinking about it, he knows, but his situation has grown so depressing that he can’t help but weigh his options, even here and now. He jams the new part into the generator’s guts like a VHS cassette into a VCR, because it doesn’t matter where it goes, as long as it goes _in,_ and reflects, as he gets to work, that it doesn’t have to be like this. He _does_ have a choice, if he grows desperate enough to take it.

And he’s been feeling pretty fucking desperate lately, it has to be said. It would do nothing to change the nature of the Nightmare itself, but it would change things enough for him to make it somewhat liveable.

On the other hand, he _could_ try to put some effort into teaching the others back at the campfire how to behave and how to be considerate, adult-minded people with an interest in helping each other, and it’s a good bet that Bill and Claudette would back him up in the endeavor, but the trouble with being decent like that is that it doesn’t work unless everybody does it. Laurie and Nea could probably be convinced to cooperate, and Ace can be alright if he’s kept in check, but Meg, although not intentionally malicious, is incurably thoughtless, and Dwight is selfish to his core. The rest of them will be picking up after those two all the time, and it’ll be difficult to keep the group cohesive and collaborative if folks feel like they’re being taken advantage of.

That’s what’s lead to the group’s current attitude, isn’t it? All of the scorekeeping and grudgery that keeps them all perpetually at each other’s throats, because Dwight and Meg started that tradition of being thoughtless and selfish and taught it to everyone who’s arrived since, and now nobody’s interested in doing anything for anyone for fear of being taken advantage of.

Evan would fucking sort them out. He’d know what to do. Unfortunately, Jake isn’t in much of a position to ask him for advice right now, given that he’s currently doing his best to hide from him, while Evan, if he knows what’s good for him, will be doing his best to catch and kill him. Once again, Jake is sticking to the tactic of staying out of his sight - it’s a good tactic to use in any case, even without his… _extenuating circumstances_ complicating matters - and so far, he’s been succeeding marvelously at it.

He polishes off the generator at a passable pace, and wastes no time in leaving it to get back into cover. Claudette, Nea and Ace are around somewhere too, though it’s hard to tell where; the swamp is a good place for stealth tactics, and they’re all making the best of it. Sure enough, there’s Evan, coming to investigate the repaired generator and look for any trace of the Survivor responsible for it, and it’s not hard to imagine that he might be eager, by now, to find somebody when they’re all going to such lengths to stay hidden from him.

Suddenly, a loud “SNAP!” and a pained yelp draw both Evan and Jake’s attention. Ace has stepped in one of Evan’s traps, and Evan is off like a shot, his time far better spent on a Survivor whose location and condition he definitely has a bead on than searching the swamp for someone who might already be long gone. Jake watches him leave, and breaks off at a run while his back is turned.

Claudette and Nea hustle for another two generators between them while Evan is occupied with Ace, which he is for a while, given that Ace, that lucky son of a bitch, is somehow able to pry the trap’s jaws from around his leg and shamble off into the swamp well before Evan gets there, and gives him a commendable run for his money. Ace isn’t lucky enough to stay out of Evan’s grasp forever, however, and Jake, getting up some nerve, heads towards them both.

He’s got to get over this _fucking bullshit_ and start doing his part in trials, and if he’s going to get over it at all, he might as well do it now. Despite fighting his hardest all the way to the hook, Ace winds up hanging from it all the same, and Jake, staying low as he hides in the shadow of the same boat where he, Max, Philip and Evan sat around the table with Lisa not so long ago, watches closely, waiting for his opportunity to sneak in and rescue him.

He’s not the only one who’s come up with the same idea, it would appear: Nea, too, is hiding nearby, but Evan spots her and quickly gives chase. It’s the opening that Jake’s been looking for, and he wastes no time in running to fetch Ace down, breaking away from the hook with him so that they can put him back together safely.

Evan’s not pulling his punches this time. Just as he and Ace stand up and part ways, Jake sees Evan herd Nea into another trap, hidden in the shallow mud of an escape route that he knew she’d want to use. This time, there’s no chance of her getting away before he can reach her, and soon enough, Jake is trailing behind him again, drumming up as much courage as he can muster in order to do it.

Another generator, courtesy of Ace, creates a bright, noisy disturbance just closeby enough that Evan seems tempted by it, and once Nea is up on a hook, he’s turning and heading for it - and he walks straight for Jake as he goes. Jake ducks into the reeds and freezes, hoping that the lack of movement will be enough to hide him, holding his breath as Evan comes close, passing barely more than inches in front of him. Mercifully, he seems focused on the generator, and Jake gives the softest sigh of relief he can, watching him go.

Right. Nea, then. Evan is still nearby, but if he’s quiet enough…

The wet ground makes it difficult to step wholly silently, but Jake does the best he can, occasionally looking back at Evan to make sure he’s still headed away. It’s not going to take him long to reach Nea even at this pace, and Jake, keeping an open ear for Evan’s heavy footsteps behind him, deftly climbs over a log to-

SNAP.

Jake almost vomits for the effort of keeping the scream contained, but once it passes, he’s panting and gritting his teeth, fighting with the trap’s teeth as they bite cruelly into the flesh and bone of his ankle. It’s to no avail, though - he’s not as lucky as Ace, evidently, and within moments, he’s hearing the quick-paced splashing of Evan’s hefty footfalls in the water as he comes to see who he’s caught.

When he rounds the log and sets eyes on Jake, though, as Jake looks pitifully back up at him, he stops, his shoulders drop, and his great, broad chest slowly rises with a deep, tired inhale, then falls again with an equally deep, equally tired and infinitely remorseful sigh.

Reluctantly, he raises his cleaver, and Jake feels his eyes beginning to burn all over again.

Oh well. At least he’ll get his smokes back.

**END**


End file.
